Your Colorado Custom Home Builder Did Not Deliver. We Hold Them Accountable.
Understanding.
Finding a Defect
Where do I look?
A custom home isn’t a production build. It’s a one-of-a-kind investment designed around your family’s vision, built with premium materials by specialized contractors and designers. When that process goes wrong, the consequences are both personal and expensive, and the defects tend to be more complex, more costly to repair, and harder to prove than in any other kind of home.
Our Recovery Process.
A custom home is unlike any other property. You didn’t pick it from a builder’s inventory, you designed it, specified it, and paid a premium for craftsmanship meant to match your vision. When a builder strays from the approved plans, swaps in cheaper materials, or delivers work far below what you paid for, the disappointment is both financial and deeply personal. These claims also bring unique challenges: comparing the finished home against the original specifications, one-of-a-kind features with no standard equivalent, and builders who often dissolve when problems surface. For over 40 years, we’ve held custom builders to the standard their clients paid for.
Specification-level investigation of original blueprints.
Accountability for the premium standard you expect.
Unique-element expertise for distinct architectural features.
Builder pursuit even when the original company has dissolved.
Full repair recovery that restores your home and vision.
A solid foundation makes for a solid building.
Colorado’s Premier Construction Defect Attorneys for Custom Homes.
Why Choose Us?
Where do I look?
Finding a Defect
As a custom homeowner, you made the largest and most personal investment of your life, a home designed around your family, your vision, and your future. When poor workmanship, failing materials, or negligent construction threatens the home you dreamed of and paid a premium to build, the financial and emotional weight is real. You don’t have to carry it alone.
Plans vs. Reality.
We compare your finished home against the approved plans and specifications, documenting every deviation and shortcut.
Held to Your Standard.
You paid for a premium home built to exact specifications, and we hold your builder accountable to every detail of that promise.
No Builder Is Out of Reach.
Even when a custom builder dissolves or disappears, we pursue their insurance carriers and subcontractors to recover what you are owed.
No Cost to You.
We work entirely on contingency, advancing all engineering, expert, and legal costs ourselves so you recover without any upfront financial risk.
You do not have to carry the responsibility alone. Hearn & Fleener helps Colorado custom home owners meet every one of these obligations with confidence.
We Hold Custom Builders to Every Promise They Made.
Hearn & Fleener
Construction Defect Experts.
You paid for a higher standard. We make sure your builder delivers it.
A custom home is not a production build. It is a one-of-a-kind investment designed around your family's specific vision, built with premium materials, and executed by a team of specialized contractors and design professionals. When that process goes wrong, the consequences are uniquely personal and uniquely expensive. The defects that emerge in a custom home are often more complex, more costly to repair, and more difficult to prove than those found in any other property type.
We represent Colorado custom home owners against the builders, architects, engineers, and contractors who failed to deliver the home they promised. We understand the demands of luxury custom construction, and we’ve built a network of expert consultants, specialty-material experts, and high-end construction professionals who can investigate and document defects at any level your home requires.
We work on a contingency fee basis, advancing all engineering, expert, and legal costs ourselves. You pay nothing upfront and only pay us when you recover.
Let’s look at some common construction defects custom homes face in Colorado.
Common Defects in Custom Home Builds.
Common Issues.
Custom homes bring complex designs, exotic materials, and advanced systems that create defects a standard production build never would. Colorado’s expansive soils, steep mountain terrain, and repeated freezing and thawing add another layer of risk for homes that weren’t engineered for their specific site.
Finding a Defect
Where do I look?
Roofing.
Custom homes often use slate, clay tile, standing-seam metal, and other premium roofing that most builders aren’t trained to install. Poor installation leads to hidden leaks and serious damage to the custom finishes below and repairs require craftsmen skilled enough to match the original work.
Foundations.
Many Colorado custom homes sit on expansive clay soils along the Front Range (clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry) or on steep mountain slopes. When a builder doesn’t engineer the foundation for the site, you get heaving slabs, cracked walls, misaligned framing, and in the mountains, slope movement that threatens the whole home.
Decks/Balconies.
Elevated decks, terraces, and outdoor living spaces are among the most common sources of serious defects in custom homes. Surfaces that slope the wrong way, poor flashing where the deck meets the house, inadequate waterproofing, and weak structural connections all lead to progressive decay and, in the worst cases, collapse risks for family and guests.
Home Automation.
High-end automation systems often fail because of poor planning during construction: undersized electrical circuits, sloppy cable management, and no dedicated cooling for equipment racks. When these trace back to a builder ignoring the engineering specs, they’re fully recoverable under Colorado construction defect law.
HVAC Systems.
Radiant floor heating, snowmelt systems, wine-cellar cooling, and integrated automation all demand exact installation that many general contractors aren’t qualified to do. When they fail, repairs are costly, both because the systems are complex and because reaching them means disturbing custom finishes.
Window Leaks.
High-end wood windows, oversized glass walls, and multi-slide doors need precise flashing and installation many builders can’t execute. When they fail, water gets in behind premium finishes, causing structural rot and interior damage that’s both extensive and extremely expensive to fix.
If your custom home is showing any of these issues, you may have a valid construction defect claim.
See why Colorado custom homeowners choose Hearn & Fleener.
Successful Case Results.
Our Results.
Every custom home is different, but our commitment to maximizing recovery isn’t. These are real results for Colorado custom home owners and communities, where the homeowner paid nothing out of pocket and every dollar recovered funded permanent repairs.
Real Results for Colorado Homeowners.
Our case results show why we’re trusted.
Longmont.
A Longmont community of four-plex patio homes was sold as one of Northern Colorado’s premier maintenance-free retirement communities, but the reality fell far short. Residents found extensive grading and drainage failures, concrete defects, roof leaks, and building-envelope problems throughout. We worked with forensic experts to document every defect and hold the original contractors accountable, and a confidential multi-million-dollar settlement fully funded the repairs to restore the maintenance-free standard residents were promised.
Concrete issues & roof leaks.
Multi-million dollar settlement.
Drainage & grading issues.
Four-plex patio community.
A community restored.
A solid foundation makes for a solid building.
Denver Tech Center.
A high-end Denver Tech Center condo community with ground-level retail faced extensive flat-roof failures and dangerous conditions in its underground parking garage. When negotiations stalled, we took the case to trial and won a $6 million jury verdict for the HOA.
High-end condominium community.
Roof & parking garage failures.
Trial verdict.
$6 million award.
Lasting repairs.
Rebulding a community to last.
Dreams Defended.
Every result below represents a family whose dream home fell short of the builder's promises and who chose Hearn & Fleener to make it right. Each one ended with permanent repairs funded and not a dollar paid out of pocket.
Cherry Creek.
A Cherry Creek community of 66 single-family lock-and-leave homes began experiencing grading and drainage failures, crumbling asphalt, and building-envelope problems soon after construction. We documented the full scope, identified every responsible party, and negotiated a confidential settlement that fully funded the repairs and gave homeowners confidence their homes were finally built to the promised standard.
66 single-family home community.
Drainage & asphalt issues.
Siding failures.
Confidential settlement.
Fully funding your community repairs.
The Details Matter.
Custom home claims are won in the details: the specifications, the substitutions, the deviations hidden behind finished walls. Finding those details is exactly what we have spent 40 years perfecting.
Fully funded repairs.
Denver.
A patio home community north of Denver was built on some of the most severe expansive clay in Colorado. The soil had shifted homes several inches, damaging finishes, plumbing, ductwork, basement slabs, and balconies throughout. We brought in expansive-soils experts, built a comprehensive case against the developer, and negotiated one of the largest soil-related repair settlements in Colorado history.
North Denver patio homes.
Severe soil movement.
Confidential settlement.
Stopping the spread of the damage.
Keeping the elements out of your building.
Recognizing a potential defect is one thing. Proving it is another, and that is where our proven four-step process comes in.
Take the First Step in Protecting Your Custom Home.
Hearn & Fleener
Construction Defect Experts.
Your Dream Home Deserves Answers. We'll Provide Them, For Free.
Your custom home was supposed to be built to a higher standard. When it wasn’t, you deserve a firm that holds your builder to every promise they made, and we bring 40 years of construction defect experience to every custom home we represent.
From spec deviations and material substitutions to structural failures and hidden shortcuts, we investigate every detail, hold every responsible party accountable, and recover the funds to make your home what it was always meant to be, all at no upfront cost and no risk to you.
The sooner you reach out, the more options you’ll have. Contact us today for your free, confidential inspection and report, and let Colorado’s most experienced custom home construction defect attorneys go to work for your family’s home.
