BERT HOWE
  • Nationwide: (800) 482-1822    
    institutional building building expert Seattle Washington hospital construction building expert Seattle Washington retail construction building expert Seattle Washington concrete tilt-up building expert Seattle Washington Subterranean parking building expert Seattle Washington high-rise construction building expert Seattle Washington parking structure building expert Seattle Washington landscaping construction building expert Seattle Washington townhome construction building expert Seattle Washington Medical building building expert Seattle Washington tract home building expert Seattle Washington condominium building expert Seattle Washington casino resort building expert Seattle Washington low-income housing building expert Seattle Washington housing building expert Seattle Washington office building building expert Seattle Washington multi family housing building expert Seattle Washington custom homes building expert Seattle Washington industrial building building expert Seattle Washington mid-rise construction building expert Seattle Washington custom home building expert Seattle Washington production housing building expert Seattle Washington
    Seattle Washington window expert witnessSeattle Washington OSHA expert witness constructionSeattle Washington stucco expert witnessSeattle Washington construction safety expertSeattle Washington civil engineer expert witnessSeattle Washington soil failure expert witnessSeattle Washington multi family design expert witness
    Arrange No Cost Consultation
    Building Expert Builders Information
    Seattle, Washington

    Washington Builders Right To Repair Current Law Summary:

    Current Law Summary: (SB 5536) The legislature passed a contractor protection bill that reduces contractors' exposure to lawsuits to six years from 12, and gives builders seven "affirmative defenses" to counter defect complaints from homeowners. Claimant must provide notice no later than 45 days before filing action; within 21 days of notice of claim, "construction professional" must serve response; claimant must accept or reject inspection proposal or settlement offer within 30 days; within 14 days following inspection, construction pro must serve written offer to remedy/compromise/settle; claimant can reject all offers; statutes of limitations are tolled until 60 days after period of time during which filing of action is barred under section 3 of the act. This law applies to single-family dwellings and condos.


    Building Expert Contractors Licensing
    Guidelines Seattle Washington

    A license is required for plumbing, and electrical trades. Businesses must register with the Secretary of State.


    Building Expert Contractors Building Industry
    Association Directory
    MBuilders Association of King & Snohomish Counties
    Local # 4955
    335 116th Ave SE
    Bellevue, WA 98004

    Seattle Washington Building Expert 10/ 10

    Home Builders Association of Kitsap County
    Local # 4944
    5251 Auto Ctr Way
    Bremerton, WA 98312

    Seattle Washington Building Expert 10/ 10

    Home Builders Association of Spokane
    Local # 4966
    5813 E 4th Ave Ste 201
    Spokane, WA 99212

    Seattle Washington Building Expert 10/ 10

    Home Builders Association of North Central
    Local # 4957
    PO Box 2065
    Wenatchee, WA 98801

    Seattle Washington Building Expert 10/ 10

    MBuilders Association of Pierce County
    Local # 4977
    PO Box 1913 Suite 301
    Tacoma, WA 98401

    Seattle Washington Building Expert 10/ 10

    North Peninsula Builders Association
    Local # 4927
    PO Box 748
    Port Angeles, WA 98362
    Seattle Washington Building Expert 10/ 10

    Jefferson County Home Builders Association
    Local # 4947
    PO Box 1399
    Port Hadlock, WA 98339

    Seattle Washington Building Expert 10/ 10


    Building Expert News and Information
    For Seattle Washington


    Carin Ramirez and David McLain recognized among the Best Lawyers in America© for 2021

    Don’t Put All Your Eggs in the Silent-Cyber Basket

    Fracking Fears Grow as Oklahoma Hit by More Earthquakes Than California

    Baltimore Bridge Collapse Occurred After Ship Lost Power Multiple Times

    Quick Note: Remember to Timely Foreclose Lien Against Lien Transfer Bond

    Las Vegas HOA Case Defense Attorney Alleges Misconduct by Justice Department

    Insurers' Motion to Knock Out Bad Faith, Negligent Misrepresentation Claims in Construction Defect Case Denied

    20 Wilke Fleury Attorneys Featured in Sacramento Magazine 2020 Top Lawyers!

    Because I Haven’t Mentioned Mediation Lately. . .

    AIA Releases State-Specific Waiver and Release Forms

    Expanded Virginia Court of Appeals Leads to Policyholder Relief

    Preliminary Notice Is More Important Than Ever During COVID-19

    Round and Round: Inside the Las Vegas Sphere

    South Carolina Homeowners May Finally Get Class Action for Stucco Defects

    Hail Drives Construction Spending in Amarillo

    First-Time Homebuyers Make Biggest Share of Deals in 17 Years

    Detroit Craftsmen Sift House Rubble in Quest for Treasured Wood

    Washington Supreme Court Expands Contractor Notice Obligations

    Insurer Not Entitled to Summary Judgment on Water Damage Claims

    Attorneys Fees Under California’s Prompt Payment Statutes. Contractor’s “Win” Fails the Sniff Test

    Work to Solve the Mental Health Crisis in Construction

    Independent Contractor v. Employee. The “ABC Test” Does Not Include a Threshold Hiring Entity Test

    April Rise in Construction Spending Not That Much

    Dot I’s and Cross T’s When It Comes to Construction Licensure Requirements

    Florida Lawmakers Fail to Reach Agreement on Condominium Safety Bill

    Employee Screening and Testing in the Covid-19 Era: Getting Back to Work

    2017 Legislative Changes Affecting the Construction Industry

    Bought a New Vacation Home? I’m So Sorry

    Cleveland Condo Board Says Construction Defects Caused Leaks

    New Zealand Using Plywood Banned Elsewhere

    3 Common Cash Flow Issues That Plague The Construction Industry

    Labor Shortages In Construction

    Legislatures Shouldn’t Try to Do the Courts’ Job

    Colorado Supreme Court Grants the Petition for Writ of Certiorari in Vallagio v. Metropolitan Homes

    New Strategy for Deterring Intracorporate Litigation?: Delaware Supreme Court Supports Fee-Shifting Bylaws

    Singapore Unveils Changes to Make Public Housing More Affordable

    Brooklyn Atlantic Yards Yields Dueling Suits on Tower

    New World to Demolish Luxury Hong Kong Towers in Major Setback

    Structural Defects Lead Schools to Close off Areas

    Design Firm Settles over Construction Defect Claim

    How the California and Maui Wildfires Will Affect Future Construction Projects

    Just Decided – New Jersey Supreme Court: Insurers Can Look To Extrinsic Evidence To Deny a Defense

    Insurer Awarded Summary Judgment on Collapse Claim

    Rams Owner Stan Kroenke Debuts His $5.5 Billion Dream Stadium

    If You Don’t Like the PPP Now, Wait a Few Minutes…Major Changes to PPP Loan Program as Congress Passes Payroll Protection Program Flexibility Act

    Could You Be More Specific . . . About My Excess AI Coverage?

    Colorado Trench Collapse Kills Two

    Nevada Legislature Burns Insurers' Rights to Offer Eroding Limits

    Norfolk Southern Agrees to $310M Settlement With Feds Over 2023 Ohio Derailment

    Rhode Island Examines a Property Owner’s Intended Beneficiary Status and the Economic Loss Doctrine in the Context of a Construction Contract
    Corporate Profile

    SEATTLE WASHINGTON BUILDING EXPERT
    DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

    The Seattle, Washington Building Expert Group at BHA, leverages from the experience gained through more than 7,000 construction related expert witness designations encompassing a wide spectrum of construction related disputes. Leveraging from this considerable body of experience, BHA provides construction related trial support and expert services to Seattle's most recognized construction litigation practitioners, commercial general liability carriers, owners, construction practice groups, as well as a variety of state and local government agencies.

    Building Expert News & Info
    Seattle, Washington

    In Oregon Construction Defect Claims, “Contract Is (Still) King”

    April 25, 2012 —

    Writing in Oregon’s Daily Journal of Commerce, David Anderson looks at the aftermath of the case Abraham v. T. Henry Construction, Inc. In that case, Anderson notes that “the homeowners hired a contractor to build their house, and subsequently discovered extensive water damage” “after expiration of the time to sue for breach of contract.” The homeowners claimed negligence. Oregon’s Supreme Court concluded that “homeowners only had to prove that the contractor negligently caused reasonably foreseeable harm to the homeowner’s property.”

    Anderson views this decision as leading to two risks for contractors. “First, contractors can be held liable in tort for breaching building code standards; second, they can be held liable for violating the often-difficult-to-define ‘reasonable care’ standard.” But here, “contract can be king.” The Oregon Supreme Court noted that the contractor “could have avoided exposure to the general ‘reasonable care’ standard by more carefully defining its obligations in the original construction contract.”

    He notes that contractors who fail to define their obligations or use generic definitions “may be exposing themselves to a more vague scope of liability.”

    Read the full story…

    Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of

    Labor Shortage Confirmed Through AGC Poll

    November 26, 2014 —
    Over 1,000 contractors participated in Associated General Contractors’ (“AGC”) survey asking whether they were facing a labor shortage. AGC crunched the numbers and provided an Analysis of its survey. The survey revealed that 83% of construction firms were having trouble finding qualified workers. This survey certainly confirmed comments from construction firms in and around Omaha. Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of Craig Martin, Lamson, Dugan and Murray, LLP
    Mr. Martin may be contacted at cmartin@ldmlaw.com

    Insurer Unable to Declare its Coverage Excess In Construction Defect Case

    January 06, 2012 —

    The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a summary judgment in the case of American Family Mutual Insurance Co. v. National Fire & Marine Insurance Co. Several other insurance companies were party to this case. In the earlier case, the US District Court of Appeals for Arizona had granted a summary judgment to Ohio Casualty Group and National Fire & Marine Insurance Company. At the heart of it, is a dispute over construction defect coverage.

    The general contractor for Astragal Luxury Villas, GFTDC, contracted with American Family to provide it with a commercial liability policy. Coverage was issued to various subcontractors by Ohio Casualty and National Fire. These policies included blanket additional insured endorsements that provided coverage to GFTDC. The subcontractor policies had provisions making their coverage excess over other policies available to GFTDC.

    The need for insurance was triggered when the Astragal Condominium Unit Owners Association filed a construction defect claim in the Arizona Superior Court. CFTDC filed a third-party claim against several subcontractors. The case was settled with American Family paying the settlement, after which it filed seeking reimbursement from the subcontractor’s insurers. The court instead granted summary judgment in favor of Ohio Casualty and National Fire.

    American Family appealed to the Ninth Circuit for a review of the summary judgment, arguing that the “other insurance” clauses were “mutually repugnant and unenforceable.” The Ninth Circuit cited a case from the Arizona Court of Appeals that held that “where two policies cover the same occurrence and both contain ‘other insurance’ clauses, the excess insurance provisions are mutually repugnant and must be disregarded. Each insurer is then liable for a pro rate share of the settlement or judgment.”

    The court noted that unlike other “other insurance” cases, the American Family policy “states that it provides primary CGL coverage for CFTDC and is rendered excess only if there is ‘any other primary insurance’ available to GFTDC as an additional insured.” They note that “the American Family policy purports to convert from primary to excess coverage only if CFTDC has access to other primary insurance as an additional insured.”

    In comparison, the court noted that “the ‘other insurance’ language in Ohio Casualty’s additional insured endorsement cannot reasonably be read to contradict, or otherwise be inconsistent with, the ‘other primary insurance’ provision in the American Family policy.” They find other reasons why National Fire’s coverage did not supersede American Family’s. In this case, the policy is “written explicitly to apply in excess.”

    Finally, the Astragal settlement did not exhaust American Family’s coverage, so they were obligated to pay out the full amount. The court upheld the summary dismissal of American Family’s claims.

    Read the court’s decision…

    Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of

    Idaho District Court Affirms Its Role as the Gatekeeper of Expert Testimony

    March 15, 2021 —
    Many subrogation claims involving fire losses rely heavily on expert testimony. Expert testimony is admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 if it is both relevant and reliable. In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), whose standard has been incorporated into Federal Rule of Evidence 702, the Supreme Court instructed federal trial courts to act as a “gatekeeper” of expert testimony, giving them the power to exclude expert testimony that is not supported by sufficient evidence. In Maria Fernanda Elosu and Robert Luis Brace v. Middlefork Ranch Incorporated, Civil Case No. 1:19-cv-00267-DCN, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14449 (D. Idaho Jan. 22, 2021) (Brace), the United States District Court for the District of Idaho exercised its gatekeeper role when it granted in part and denied in part the defendant’s motion to exclude expert testimony pursuant to Daubert and Federal Rule of Evidence 702. Brace, involved a fire at a vacation cabin in McCall, Idaho. The cabin, owned by Maria Elosu (Elosu) and Robert Brace (Brace and collectively with Elosu, Plaintiffs) was part of a homeowner’s association called Middlefork Ranch, Incorporated (MFR). The cabin had a “wrap around” deck with a propane-fired refrigerator on the north side. On the day before the fire, Brace stained the deck using an oil-based stain. That night, Elosu smoked cigarettes on the deck. The next morning, Plaintiffs used rags to clean up excess oil from the deck and an MFR employee changed the propane on the refrigerator and relit the pilot light. At 4:00 p.m., a fire started in or around the cabin while no one was home. The fire was discovered by a group of contractors who testified that the fire was isolated to the east side of the cabin when they first arrived. Importantly, one witness testified that there was no fire and no flames around the propane-fired refrigerator. The fire destroyed the cabin and the contents within. Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of Melissa Kenney, White and Williams LLP
    Ms. Kenney may be contacted at kenneyme@whiteandwilliams.com

    Georgia Court Rules that Separate Settlements Are Not the End of the Matter

    October 14, 2013 —
    The Georgia Court of Appeals recently took up the question of how parties in a construction defect settlement relate to one another in terms of apportioning the settlement. Scott Murphy, writing on the Barnes & Thornburg blog clarifies the issues. The underlying construction defect case involved a newly-constructed hotel with mold and mildew problems. The owners sued the contractor (for negligent construction) and the architect (for negligent design). Separately, the owners settled with the contractor for $2.3 million and the architect for $100,000. Subsequently, the contractor sued the architect, attempting to recover part of the settlement the contractors had made with the owners. At trial, the architect prevailed, obtaining a summary judgment that under Georgia law, “joint-tortfeasors can no longer assert contribution or non-contractual indemnity claims.” This was reversed by the Court of Appeals, determining that the two were not joint tortfeasors. Mr. Murphy notes that “the court rejected the parties’ attempt to disavow joint and several liability in their respective settlement agreements.” The court ruled that the contractor could proceed with their claims against the argument. Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of

    Florida Federal Court to Examine Issues of Alleged Arbitrator Conflicts of Interests in Panama Canal Case

    May 24, 2021 —
    The parties in a $238-million dispute over the construction of the third set of locks for the Panama Canal are raising issues concerning alleged conflicts of interest on the part of the International Chamber of Commerce (“ICC”) arbitrators in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.[2] The case may address rarely litigated issues concerning whether arbitrators who sit on multiple arbitration panels together or who support appointment of each other to lead arbitration panels have disabling conflicts of interest. The case pits Grupo Unidos por el Canal, S.A. (“Grupo”), a consortium of Spanish, Italian, Belgian, and Panamanian construction firms, against Autoridad del Canal de Panama (“ACP”), the Panamanian entity that operates the Panama Canal and that sponsored the multi-billion-dollar, decade-long project to expand the Canal’s capacity by building a new set of locks (the “Project”). The current dispute (the “Panama 1 Arbitration”), which centers on the suitability of the rock coming from the excavations to be used to produce concrete aggregates for the Project, was arbitrated before a three-member ICC Tribunal and resulted in a $238-million award to ACP and against Grupo. The ICC Tribunal reversed a decision of the dispute review board established in the parties’ contract. Reprinted courtesy of Sarah B. Biser, Fox Rothschild LLP and Philip Z. Langer, Fox Rothschild LLP Ms. Biser may be contacted at sbiser@foxrothschild.com Mr. Langer may be contacted at planger@foxrothschild.com Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of

    Selected Environmental Actions Posted on the Fall 2018 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulator Actions

    November 06, 2018 —
    The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, housed in the Office of Management and Budget, has issued the Fall 2018 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions to be taken over the next several months by federal executive departments and agencies. This report will highlight some of the environmental actions, to be proposed or finalized soon by these agencies. Eventually, the Agenda will be published in the Federal Register. 1. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) EPA, of course, has listed by far the largest number of actions. For instance, EPA’s agenda lists 92 separate actions to be taken under its Clean Air Act (CAA) authority. As an example, EPA reports that it will issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in May 2019 of its proposals to increase consistency and true transparency in considering the cost benefit of its proposed rules, and review the standards of performance for new, modified, and reconstructed sources of greenhouse gas emissions by means of an NPRM to be issued in November 2018. Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of Anthony B. Cavender, Pillsbury
    Mr. Cavender may be contacted at anthony.cavender@pillsburylaw.com

    World's Longest Suspension Bridge Takes Shape in Turkey

    November 29, 2021 —
    It was a long-standing dream—not only of Ersin Arıoğlu, but of a nation. Could a suspension bridge someday cross the Dardanelles Strait in Turkey and provide another link between Europe and Asia? “To build a highway suspension bridge over the Çanakkale Strait has been on the agenda of the Turkish Ministry of Public Works for the last 20 years,” Arıoğlu, co-founder of contractor Yapi Merkezi, wrote in a technical paper. That was in 1994. Reprinted courtesy of Aileen Cho, Engineering News-Record Ms. Cho may be contacted at choa@enr.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of