Construction Next Door

The house next door to us is under construction. It’s a 4 story brick that they extended out and are making it into a 6 family. The owner lives out of the country and he hired someone to manage the construction. I’ve heard that the owner’s son is going to live in one of the apartments when they finish. We have no contact with the owner, we contact the construction manager if we have any questions or concerns. Since the house was extended out, their side walls go past our house so we have allowed them to use our deck to finish their side walls. They made no effort to protect our house or deck and there is paint splattered on our house and deck (we have a tiled deck). It is not going to come off. We did inform the construction manager via voice-mail and text but he isn’t responding at all. We also talked to the workers and told them but basically all they can do is apologize. We have also had other problems from the constuction that have cost us time an money with no acknowlegement from the construction manager. I’m wondering what we should do in this situation. I know that many other people have lived next door to construction and have experienced way worse problems so I’m not sure if we should just suck it up or should we do something like take them to small claims court (I don’t want to spend money on a lawyer) or report them to the DoB. I’m just really angry because it would have been so easy to protect our house but they showed a complete lack of regard for our property. Any advice would be appreciated!

zlt99

in Construction 12 years ago

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anotherposter | 12 years ago

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You should make it clear they are no longer allowed on your property (if they need access anymore) without compensation or reparing damage and a legal document about liability.

elbow | 12 years ago

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I’d write or phone the owner before I took anything to court.

shahnandersen

in Construction 12 years ago

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This is hindsight but you should never have let they on your property without a signed written agreement for them to protect your property and be responsible for remediating all damages.  You should have asked to be added as additionally insured on their insurance contract.  At this point you can go to small claims court, or file a claim with your insurance company.  They will turn around and sue the owner’s insurance company.   You should also check the Deptment of Building’s bizweb website to see whether the have filed permits for the work.

Arkady | 12 years ago

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If you have photos of before & after you could probably win in small claims court.  Put together a coherent time line narrative to go w/ the photos.