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| | 1/5/2009 10:37:43 PM |
Wet Winter Has Homeowners Scrambling to Fight Mold; Peering Behind the Walls
May 9, 2003The problem of toxic mold in homes and apartments is sometimes overblown, but builders and consumer lawyers still "have to deal with the problem," a leading construction-defect lawyer said yesterday.
San Diego attorney Thomas E. Miller, speaking at the National Association of Real Estate Editors meeting in San Diego, said most construction defects can be traced to inadequate protection against water intrusion.
Moreover, tougher energy standards have made homes more air-tight and allowed unwanted moisture to be trapped inside buildings, leading to mold and associated health problems, said Miller, who has won $450 million in construction-defect settlements in the past 10 years.
Miller was debated by Michael D. Pattinson, president of the Barratt American home-building company in Carlsbad and former president of the San Diego and state building industry groups.
Pattinson, whose company has been sued several times by Miller, said he is handling potential mold problems by providing homebuyers with maintenance guidebooks and other educational materials. He said consumer attorneys generate lawsuits by frightening buyers and homeowner associations with warnings about mold.
"Obviously, these guys are saying mold is gold," Pattinson said.
Mitch Mitchell, vice president for public policy at the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, said one way to cut down on litigation is to encourage arbitration between buyers and builders.
Current procedures are not strong enough to satisfy insurance companies that pay out claims on construction defects, he said, and a new law is in the works to strengthen the arbitration system.
Miller took aim at a law that took effect in January giving builders the right to repair a defect before a consumer can sue. He questioned the wisdom of allowing builders to repair something they weren't able to build right in the first place.
Mitchell said giving builders the right to repair was no different from giving car manufactures the opportunity to fix a squeak.
"It's the same concept," Mitchell said.
Pattison said Barratt and other builders are now trying to avoid defects by employing third-party onsite inspectors who can catch mistakes overlooked by city building inspectors.
The design of homes also has changed, he added, to avoid water intrusion caused by such things as flat roofs and balconies over living spaces. Average construction time for a new home also has lengthened from the previous standard of 16 to 18 weeks to six months or more.
Miller denied that lawsuits are the main cause of higher home prices in San Diego and elsewhere. Other factors involve higher building and planning fees and land prices, he said.
"Construction-defect litigation is an easy target," he said.
With building companies becoming larger through consolidations and mergers, Miller and Pattison said the impact on consumers will be positive and negative.
Larger companies can afford to build better homes and service buyers more promptly, they agreed, but it also means that small builders may operate at a disadvantage and consumers and their attorneys could be outgunned by big corporate lawyers.
The real estate editors are meeting in San Diego in tandem with the American Institute of Architects' national convention. More than 18,000 architects began four days of meetings and tours of San Diego Wednesday and will gather at the San Diego Convention Center tomorrow for the convention's most anticipated event, a presentation by architect Daniel Libeskind of his proposed design for the World Trade Center site in New York City.
Paralleling the architects' outings, the real estate reporters and editors from around the country toured Otay Ranch Wednesday, downtown last night and, like many of the architects, tomorrow will visit the Salk Institute, which was designed by the late Louis Kahn in the 1960s and is considered one of the best examples worldwide of modernist architecture.
© Copyright 2009 The Miller Law Firm. All rights Reserved.
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