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You know something is wrong. You bought a new house or had remodeling work done, but now you have discovered a leak, a crack in the drywall, a crack in the foundation, electrical issues, plumbing issues, standing water or some other problem. What do you do now?
Investigate The Problem
Be aware that the root cause of a leak or another problem may not be immediately obvious. You may need to have a structural engineer or another professional investigate the problem. Do not entrust the investigation to the original contractor, as the contractor may try to minimize the problem or offer a fix that is little more than a temporary cover-up. You may want to consider contacting a construction law attorney right away at this part of the process, as the attorney will be able to bring in a trusted expert.
Review The Construction Contract
Your contract with the general contractor or construction company will have critical information about warranties, rights and responsibilities. It may state that the losing party is responsible for paying the prevailing party’s legal fees. It may also dictate that construction defect disputes be resolved through arbitration or another form of alternative dispute resolution, rather than going to trial. Careful review of the contract is important, because failure to adhere to its terms could leave you in breach of contract. An experienced lawyer can help you understand the terms of the construction contract.
Make Emergency Repairs
Resolving construction defect claims can take time. If water is leaking into your house, you may not be able to wait until the case is resolved. Be aware that getting necessary repairs made now may not disqualify you for seeking damages. You may still be able to pursue a claim to get reimbursed for the repair costs and more. To be on the safe side, you may want to review your case with a construction law attorney before moving forward with any repairs.
Stay Within The Statute Of Repose
Florida’s Statute of Repose, sometimes referred to as the statute of limitations, dictates the latest date at which a construction defect claim can be filed. It varies based on the situation, and more time is allowed for latent defects. While the statute does allow a significant amount of time, property owners who suspect defects are encouraged to take action as quickly as possible, not only to ensure that they do not miss the cutoff, but so a case can be pursued while evidence is still relatively fresh.
At Heekin Law, P.A. we offer free consultations. We will work with experts as needed to determine whether there is defective construction and to understand its nature. We will find out who caused it and take the appropriate action to pursue compensation for you.
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to