If you have been around Texas construction in the past decade, you’ve no doubt heard about a foreman shopping his crew around. You’ve probably worried about a key superintendent or project manager taking his skills to your competitor. Maybe you have lost sleep over an estimator with a LinkedIn profile that says he is immediately
Co-author: Stephanie Snyder-Zuasnabar
In James Construction Group, LLC v. Westlake Chemical Corporation, the Texas Supreme Court clarified the standard necessary to satisfy notice provisions in a construction contract. The Court’s opinion reached two key holdings: (1) substantial compliance is sufficient to satisfy a party’s obligation under a contractual notice requirement; (2) however, if the
Co-author: Stephanie Snyder-Zuasnabar
Texas has new lien laws that affect all construction projects with a prime contract dated on or after January 1, 2022. The new lien laws are particularly helpful to architects, engineers, and surveyors. Design professionals will benefit from the expanded lien rights provided by this new legislation. Lower tier design professionals will
Every company, no matter the industry, relies on its name and reputation to develop customers and generate revenue. Think about the brands that dominate American culture such as Nike, Wal-Mart, Amazon or McDonald’s, then imagine those businesses without the ability to adequately protect their names, slogans and logos. No doubt the vultures would circle and
One the most litigated or disputed issues in construction is that of the change order. Almost every experienced contractor has dealt with either defending against or pursing change orders relating to additional work, time and costs since owners asking for extra or changed work in the midst of a lump sum project is not an
Since arriving in the United States the Coronavirus pandemic has taken a devastating toll on nearly every aspect of our economy. Industries such as construction have faced new hardships and challenges with workplace safety, material and supply chain logistics, labor shortages, communication and business development. As construction firms continue to weather the financial burdens
Co-author: Trenton Patterson
It has been months since you have been paid and the general contractor or the owner continues to demand that you perform extra work, perform in changed conditions or work on a compressed timeline with no promise of payment in sight. At this point you have a decision to make. Do you
The winter storm that brought snow, freezing temperatures, power outages, frozen water lines and bursting pipes to Texas, shutting down most construction projects in the process, forced many contractors and owners to take a look that their contracts to determine who is responsible for the ensuing delays and the costs to repair any damage.
My law partner, David Gair, and I recently wrote a paper regarding the energy-efficient commercial building tax deduction (IRC § 179D). The upshot is that the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 recently made this deduction permanent. As discussed in much more detail in the paper, 179D allows for a tax deduction of up to $1.80 per
The general prohibition against waiving lien rights under Chapter 53 of the Texas Property Code has been written about extensively, and is well known throughout the industry. However, the Construction Trust Fund Act (Ch. 162 of the Texas Property Code) does not contain any such prohibition. From the Act itself, it is not clear whether