Condominium developers and building contractors are facing a wave of construction defect lawsuits in Florida, where legal and financial propellants are driving the litigation, along with the sheer volume of condo development.
And the pileup of cases may not recede anytime soon.
“They’re going to continue to spike for the next several years,” said Miami-based attorney Scott Kravetz, office managing partner of law firm Duane Morris. “If you just look out the window and you see all the cranes, it seems likely that this defect litigation is going to continue to spike for years to come. … You’ve got more high-rises presently being built within a five-mile radius of Downtown Miami area than in the entire state of California.”
Some owners sue over construction defects long after their condos are built, because, while some mistakes are quickly identified, latent defects manifest themselves slowly. Florida law gives condo owners a seven-year statute of limitations, or “statute of repose,” to sue developers and contractors for defective construction.
For example, Kravetz represents a billionaire who bought a penthouse about six years ago at the Arte oceanfront condominium in Surfside, a Miami suburb. The Real Deal reported that the owner of the penthouse is a company controlled by Ramzi Musallam, managing partner of New York-based Veritas Capital Management. He paid $33 million in 2020 for the penthouse, which allegedly has defects that include glass and glazing problems and a mechanical system that allows water intrusion. […]
“Historically, in a development boom like there’s been in the last several years, quality gets compromised for quantity, time and time again,” Kravetz told Commercial Observer. At the 12-story, 16-unit Arte condominium, “we have seen significant mechanical deficiencies throughout the building that have caused excessive condensation,” he said.
Water intrusion, a common construction defect in Florida, is “hard to defend,” Kravetz said. “The defenses we see all the time are the contractors say they built it per plans and specs, and they got approvals from the building department. And that’s just not an adequate defense.” […]
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