Developer Installed Defective Exterior Stucco Siding
Clients faced recurring issues with elastic paint on their stucco-sided home, leading to moisture damage and mold. After the developer refused further repairs, legal intervention resulted in arbitration and an award for the cost of comprehensive repairs, including stucco replacement and mold remediation.
The Situation
A well known developer built a community of large single family homes. Many of the homes had stucco siding that the developer painted with a new type of 'elastic paint'.
Our clients bought one of the houses and every few years, large sections of the paint would peal and pull away from the house. Each time it happened, our clients called the developer and the developer would returned and repainted the impacted area. After about 8 years so doing so, the developer refused to return to repaint, claiming that the pealing paint was a 'maintenance issue' and our clients called us.
Through our investigation we discovered that the elastic paint used by the developer prevented the stucco from properly drying, resulting in extensive cracks and a general failure of the stucco.
The paint was also trapping rain water and moisture in the stucco, forming bubbles in the paint and pushing the paint off the house. The water trapped in the stucco was also flowing into the interior walls of the house through holes in the exterior water proofing caused by the developer's defective installation of windows and exterior trim on the house.
The water inside the walls was causing rot and mold growth, including toxic strains of mold, the spores of which, were being circulated around the interior of the house.
The Result
Our demands that the developer repair the damages went unanswered forcing the matter into arbitration, resulting in an award of the cost of repairing the damages to our clients, including removing and replacing all of the stucco and rot, and remediating the mold from the house.