Built in the 1980s, Cloverplace is a duplex community just off U.S. 19 in Pinellas County. The 120 buildings (240 units) are home to about 500 people, many of them retirees and young families. In 2007, residents of the Cloverplace Condos began to notice unmistakable signs of sinkhole activity. Walls were cracking, stucco was peeling…
Attorney Ted Corless is on the scene investigating the latest large sinkhole incident in the State of Florida. A large sinkhole opened on the morning of July 14 and it has already swallowed two homes. Authorities are scrambling to keep people safe from the massive, fast-growing sinkhole. Corless learned repairs were done on the sinkhole…
Property value after sinkhole repair After your home has experienced any sinkhole history and all repairs are completed, the story is far from over. Even if your repairs are successful and you never face a sinkhole again, you’re still left to deal with the property value of a home decreasing. So what can be done…
We had a sinkhole repaired about 10 years ago. Insurance covered the expense and we are still insured. Problem: we are ready to sell and our buyer just backed out of his offer because he said his bank would not give a loan for a sink hole house. Is that common? What is a seller…
Can you afford to buy an unrepaired sinkhole home? If you’ve found the perfect home for yourself, but the seller informs you there is an open sinkhole claim, you very likely have some questions. What does this mean regarding your potential purchase of the home? What information should you have? What if you can’t afford…
This is an excellent question that I am not sure has a clear cut answer. We do know that virtually in every case your lender for a mortgage can require insurance on the property. If a homeowner fails to secure insurance, the bank can apply what we call a force place policy. This is when…
The issue often becomes not necessarily what their interpretation of the data is, but instead whether they have conducted sufficient testing before rendering an opinion. If they produce the test results, you can always have the data itself evaluated. Frankly, most insurance companies will get popped if they later discover that the engineering firm cut corners on the manner in which the loss was investigated.
My home has a confirmed sinkhole, which the insurance company paid to repair. However, there is no question that the value of my home, even after being fixed, is less than it was before my claim. Can I get paid from the insurance company for the loss of value? This is a hotly contested issue,…
During the 2005 legislative session, A wide variety of new statutes for Florida sinkholes were adopted. Before you think this change was to protect homebuyers, it was not. Instead, it was designed to mark homes with sinkhole damage, so that no future insurance company would insure it unless the proper repairs could be documented.
What can I do about the lost value of my sinkhole home? Unfortunately, insurance policies and Florida law do not allow for recovery of loss of value to your property. This is an extraneous consequence of having a sinkhole claim that insurance contracts and insurance companies do not take into consideration. This is a cold…
