Contractor Installed Defective Foundation
Homeowners in a gated community faced severe house damage due to improperly installed foundation by their contractor, leading to legal action that resulted in a court-mandated arbitration after the contractor and their insurance's attorneys initially refused to comply.
The Situation
Homeowners purchased a vacant hillside lot in a gated community of multimillion dollar homes and hired a general contractor to build a custom home on the lot.
After moving into the finished house, the owners noticed cracking in the walls of the family room and other areas of the house. After the contractor filled the cracks and repainted the walls, the cracking returned. When the contractor said there was nothing else they could do, refused to fix the cracking, the home owners called us for help.
We assembled a team of construction experts and discovered that the sophisticated foundation system designed for the house had not been installed properly by the contractor. The defective foundation was unable to support the weight of the house on the hillside lot and was allowing the house to move, resulting in severe damage to the house.
After the contractor refused to repair the defective foundation, the home owners demanded arbitration as was required under their construction contract with the contractor. The contractor referred the matter to his insurance company and when the team of attorneys the insurance company appointed to defend the contractor refused to arbitrate, we asked the court to intercede. The Judge agreed that Arbitration was required, and ordered the case to arbitration
The Result
After three days of arbitration, the insurance company had heard enough and realizing that its team of attorneys and the contractor we're going to lose the case, settled the case, paying the homeowners the full cost to repair the house and all of the homeowners attorneys' and experts' fees and costs, a combined total of more than $1,500,000.