non sign related legal advice needed.

[skyhigh]

I have a call into my lawyer, unfortunately she is out of town this week. My problem is nothing pressing, although Im furious over what has transpired in the last couple days. (Surely we have a lawyer in our group, that does signs as his part time job :ROFLMAO

To condense this into a short story.....
I had a contractor install a new flat roof on a very small section of a building I own. The work was done 10 years ago, and included a total replacement of the sheeting. Fast forward to 2 days ago.....I notice water stains on the wall & ceiling, so I have a contractor come to investigate. From what he's telling me, the original contractor didn't do the job correctly (apparently), and believes this has been leaking since day one.

So my question is.....Do I have any recourse against the original contractor after this much time has elapsed? The insurance company is balking whether this is covered or not.

The part that bothers me the most......The original contractor screwed me over so badly with the other jobs he did (same time as this job), that my lawyer really pressed me to sue him. At that time I declined to file any action.

 

[royster13]

Even if you have recourse, you need to ask yourself if the offending contractor has the funds to satisfy your claim....As far as insurance, resultant damage is typically covered even if there is no coverage for the poor workmanship itself....

 

[Locals Find!]

Seek the advice of an attorney. Most of them will give you a free consult and tell you whether or not you have a case. Much better than asking people on a sign forum.

 

[skyhigh]

Seek the advice of an attorney. Most of them will give you a free consult and tell you whether or not you have a case. Much better than asking people on a sign forum.

Adtechia, don't sell the combined knowledge of this forum short. Just venting actually......and possibly someone else may have had a similar problem in the past.

And as I said before.....perhaps we have an attorney who does signs part time. Or maybe a good roofer :ROFLMAO:
It could happen.

 

[MikePro]

i'm no roofer, but i have roofed a dozen or so houses. there should be NO excuse for leaks except idiotic oversights and/or plain laziness. you're literally skinning the roof with rubber and armor-plating it with shingles.

sucks you didn't notice the issue sooner, but roofing jobs do require a bit of longevity by nature of the job. you should be a GO to seek legal recourse. Unless, of course, it was some craigslist tradesman with no insurance.... then you're screwed.

 

[skyhigh]

Unless, of course, it was some craigslist tradesman with no insurance.... then you're screwed.

Nope, he is a local contractor. Thus the reason I was hesitant to sue him for the other crap he did. I live in a very small community. At the time I felt it wasn't in either of our best interest.

Foolish decision.

Even if you have recourse, you need to ask yourself if the offending contractor has the funds to satisfy your claim

True.

 

[Locals Find!]

Ok, you want some real advice? Here goes. This comes from an attorney friend of mine. He said, "it doesn't matter if the contractor has assets or not. If you can convince a judge the damages were his fault you can get a judgement just about anywhere (he is a Florida Attorney, not up on your local laws) with a judgement in most states you can garnish wages, have the court seize assets to sell to satisfy the judgement. This can include personal assets such as homes, cars, furnishings, clothing etc..."

So, simply put if you can prove the damages and afford to go after him do it. Let's just hope the statute of limitations isn't up in this case.

 

[Marlene]

seems like if you had in writing from the other company that the damage was due to the other guy's crappy work that would be enough to gt things started. the 10 year timeline shouldn't matter as it is the kind of thing that is hidden. it isn't like having a door put on wrong that is out in the open and clearly wrong. go for it

 

[ddarlak]

he is obviously a hack, but if he did this 10 years ago and is still in business, he just might have progressed. call him and show him his dirty work and ask him what he can do for you that would stop you from sueing him.

 

[John L]

Tar paper isn't usually used on a flat roof. Shingles just won't work on a flat or minimally sloped roof. Even if it's residential style construction, typically a flat roof would have been a modified torch down, old fashioned tar paper built up, or a "rubber type" of membrane roof like you see on a commercial shopping center, etc. Being nitpicky, he also overlapped the drip edge wrong. So it looks like the job was doomed from start if it was a low slope. If its a small roof you might not find it financially worth pursuing the guy. PA did not have a home improvement commission 10 years ago, so I don't think you could sue for the state fund on this. But I am not a sign making lawyer. As a side note... PA cant afford it, and it will probably bankrupt the state, but I noticed on TV this morning that we are about to adopt the national building codes... we're movin on up.

 

[John L]

http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/hiccon.aspx?id=4502 Your time frame from the completion date probably would exclude you anyway because PA has only had licensing for a few years now, but some states have a state fund that is held from license fees to pay restitution to consumers that have realized damages. I don't know if PA has hopped on that just yet or not. Best of luck.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Adtechia, don't sell the combined knowledge of this forum short. Just venting actually......and possibly someone else may have had a similar problem in the past.

Actually not so much in the past. Right over my heat presses and one of my smaller embroidery machines.

That was a long ongoing mess that hopefully was just finished back in July, not by the guy that did the initial installation though. Although he had done the roof before back in the late 90s with no issue, same spot. The problem that we had was that the leak also happened right above a/c duct work and it would leak right on top of that and then drip off the a/c, so it initially looked like it was the duct work. Now it could have been the a/c, but it would only do this during a very very heavy rain (it took a lot of water, so not every rain got through the leak). That SOB always wanted to blame the a/c line though, even after I had a picture of the leaking roof right above the a/c line.

This was actually on ongoing issue for about a year after they re-did the roof, during that time the boss had actually folded up the business (he claimed due to the new laws coming into effect, I don't know if that was BS or not). Now to his credit, he didn't charge us for what he did to try to fix it, but in the end since he was defunct (but he still did come out), after he came out in May and it leaked at the beginning of July, we called someone else. So far it seems to be holding up and it's been raining an awful lot around here. In fact, clouding up for another cloud burst right now.

You may or may not get judgement in your favor, but if it is a small area (like mine is) it's not worth it. I'm pissed more about not having warranty on those expensive shingles since day one.

 

[Gino]

Besides the guy having ample funds, what would your approximate cost be to tear out and replace ?? It might be cheaper in the long-run to just do it over correctly and just let go of it. I know principle plays a big part, but perhaps, it just isn't worth the hassle for a couple hundred bucks.

Mine's worse. On the garage section of our shop, where we do all the trucks, if you remember that area, the guy put a roof over top of an old roof and it started leaking before he left. That was about 4 years ago. He said he'd take care of it. He came back and put some more stuff over top. It stopped leaking. However, we didn't have any real rain to speak of and come winter with the snow and ice melting came in like crazy at three old spots. He never came back. Had another guy go up and spent $600 more with him. That patch lasted about a year. Had still yet another guy go up and it cost about $400. Still frickin' leaks. We're having so much rain this year, I'm not gonna do anthing until this fall..... then I'm gonna tear it all out and start over.

 

[skyhigh]

Besides the guy having ample funds, what would your approximate cost be to tear out and replace ?? It might be cheaper in the long-run to just do it over correctly and just let go of it. I know principle plays a big part, but perhaps, it just isn't worth the hassle for a couple hundred bucks.

The contractor I had, said the truss's need replaced (what he could see were rotted), and the facia is completely rotted out also. Being the sloped roof runs into this 5' x 8' flat roof, he said he would need to tear out a couple feet of shingles, so he could run the rubber roof underneath that.

What we have are....
- a couple 8 ft truss's
- the new rubber roof material (including all that goes along with that....ice shield, contact glue..ect)
- new sheeting (plywood and insulation underneath)
- a few bundles of regular shingles
- the soffit & facia will need to be removed, and new put up
- labor.

His estimate for just that part was $1600.
Lets not forget the damage to the interior wall & ceiling. I'm only guessing, that will run a few thousand.....perhaps more, once the wall is torn out. Being it was leaking over such a long time frame, how much damage is inside the wall cavity?

At this stage, I'm thinking the best case scenario will be at least $4k. At the worst....I don't even want to think about it.

His bill for a temporary patch job (at 3pm with rain expected any minute) was more than a "Couple Hundred Bucks".

 

[Locals Find!]

The contractor I had, said the truss's need replaced (what he could see were rotted), and the facia is completely rotted out also. Being the sloped roof runs into this 5' x 8' flat roof, he said he would need to tear out a couple feet of shingles, so he could run the rubber roof underneath that.

What we have are....
- a couple 8 ft truss's
- the new rubber roof material (including all that goes along with that....ice shield, contact glue..ect)
- new sheeting (plywood and insulation underneath)
- a few bundles of regular shingles
- the soffit & facia will need to be removed, and new put up
- labor.

His estimate for just that part was $1600.
Lets not forget the damage to the interior wall & ceiling. I'm only guessing, that will run a few thousand.....perhaps more, once the wall is torn out. Being it was leaking over such a long time frame, how much damage is inside the wall cavity?

At this stage, I'm thinking the best case scenario will be at least $4k. At the worst....I don't even want to think about it.

His bill for a temporary patch job (at 3pm with rain expected any minute) was more than a "Couple Hundred Bucks".

Don't forget mold. You are more than likely going to find mold that will need to be re-mediated.

 

[binki]

We had a similar problem but the issue was the materials, not the install. We sued BOTH the OEM and the installer and the installer made our case for us.

Go after both and if the OEM shows up they will testify the installer was at fault and bingo! Now you get to collect!