Florida´s New Construction Defect Statute Impacts Mold Claims

Originally published April 2004

In May 2003, Chapter 558 became effective in Florida. The statute requires that a residential claimant follow the procedures in the statute to notify the contractor and other responsible parties of defective construction and provides the contractor a method of resolving the construction defect dispute prior to litigation; a right to cure. Similar to California’s right to cure statute, Florida’s statute is an attempt to reduce the case load in the court system. One key difference from the California statute is that the contractor only has five business days after receipt of the initial notice to conduct an inspection and a total of 25 calendar days to serve a written response to the claim. This is a very short time to coordinate the appropriate inspections, determine the cause of the problem and propose a solution.