Roadways & Infrastructure

The Voice of Colorado’s Homeowners

Sullan², Sandgrund, Smith & Perczak, P.C.

Colorado's Private Roadway and Infrastructure Problem Lawyers

When a hillside or mountain community is created, developers need to deal with issues such as contracting soils (soils that contract when wet), expansive soils (wetted soils that exert thousands of pounds of pressure), unstable slopes, and flood hazards when building private roadways and other infrastructure. There are well-accepted building construction techniques to minimize these sorts of problems. To prevent roads from washing out, for example, developers and builders may need to install appropriate drainage pans and channels under the road. When developers do not do their job properly, however, road wash-outs and related hardships can occur.

Sullan² Sandgrund, Smith & Perczak, P.C. is one of Colorado’s leading construction defect litigation law firms . Our attorneys have represented many Colorado homeowner associations and individual home owners in lawsuits seeking compensation for damages caused by:

• Heaving roads and street collapse 
• Sinkholes
• Utility line failures
• Septic system failure
• Street collapse
• Erosion
• Washouts
• Underground water issues
• Rock falls
• Landslides
• Leaking irrigation ditches

When a roadway or other infrastructure is built, it is placed in the middle of nature. As a home owner, you are entitled to adequate, timely and full disclosure of the risks associated with soil and slope instability. You are also entitled to disclosure of the various construction techniques employed (or which could have been employed) to deal with these conditions.

Because Colorado's building industry exerts enormous economic influence over the engineers that it uses, review by an engineer of your own choosing of the engineering report and recommendations specific to privately-owned infrastructure you use may be prudent. Sometimes, a developer’s engineer decides that it may not be "cost-beneficial" for the developer to use a certain construction technique that will better solve a problem presented by site conditions, without a serious analysis of the ultimate, future cost to the home owner due to the failure to use this technique, and without full disclosure of the risk of not using the alternate construction method.

We always advise homeowner associations and individual home owners to attempt work out problems with builders and developers first. However, if you have exhausted every reasonable avenue to get the persons responsible to fix the problem, our law firm can step in and provide assistance. Our law firm strongly encourages the use of "Plan B" settlement discussions involving round-table meetings of construction experts in an effort to develop a reasonable repair plan to be funded by those responsible for the construction problems.  Homeowner associations and home owners must be careful, however, that the "Plan B" process is not misused to make "band-aid" repairs following inadequate investigation that will come back to haunt the owner years later.  No property owner wants to mistakenly rush into prematurely agreeing to a "Plan B" repair.

Effective October 1, 2007, the firm name changed from Vanatta, Sullan, Sandgrund, Sullan and Smith, P.C. to Sullan², Sandgrund, Smith & Perczak, P.C.  Mr. Sandgrund became "Of Counsel" then as well, and Ms. Mari Perczak joined the firm on that date and become a shareholder. It will take several months for the website to be fully updated to reflect these changes.

Our Fee

Nearly all construction defect cases that we agree to work on we handle on a contingency fee basis. This means our attorney time costs our clients nothing unless we make a recovery. Our fee equals a percentage of the recovery we obtain from the builder, developer or other responsible parties. (Under Colorado's ethical rules, even with a contingent fee, the client may be liable for certain court costs.) We try to ensure that after the attorneys’ fees are paid, the home owners have enough money left over to fix the problem. Our goal is to give home owners the house they were promised.

Learn More:

Get Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Construction Defects
Representative Construction Defect Cases
Making Headlines: Read news articles about Sullan², Sandgrund, Smith & Perczak, P.C.
How to Choose a Construction Defect Lawyer