Is Your Colorado Single-Family Home Hiding a Construction Defect?
Finding a Defect
Where do I look?
Your home is the single largest investment you will ever make. When the builder who constructed it cut corners on the foundation, the roof, the drainage, the framing, the financial and emotional consequences fall entirely on you. You are left with a defective home, a builder who isn't returning calls, and no clear path forward.
Defects
What to look for at your property.
Our Recovery Process.
As a single-family homeowner, your home is likely the largest investment you will ever make, and you trusted your builder to construct it correctly. When poor workmanship, failing materials, or negligent design threatens the safety, value, or structural integrity of your home, the financial and emotional weight of that failure can feel overwhelming. Hearn & Fleener stands with individual homeowners at every stage, combining deep forensic expertise with proven litigation experience to uncover exactly what went wrong, hold the responsible parties accountable, and recover the funds needed to make your home whole again.
Forensic investigation that documents every defect.
Construction records research.
Honest claim assessment of your options & realistic recovery.
Aggressive litigation against builders and their insurers.
Full repair recovery that funds permanent repairs, not patches.
Hearn & Fleener handles every step, so you’re not fighting the builder alone.
Colorado’s Premier Attorneys for Single-Family Construction Defects.
We are dedicated to holding developers accountable and recovering the maximum funding required to address construction failures and ensure your community's long-term stability. With over 40 years of exclusive construction defect experience and more than $450 million recovered for Colorado property owners, no firm is better equipped to protect your single-family home.
Hearn & Flenner
Colorado’s best defect attorneys.
Experience
A proven track record of success.
Proven Track Record.
With over 40 years of experience and more than $450 million recovered, we have the results single-family homeowners can trust to hold their builder accountable.
Zero Upfront Cost.
We work entirely on contingency, advancing all engineering, expert, and legal costs ourselves, so you only pay when your home recovers and never a dollar out of pocket.
Forensic Firepower.
We bring specialized engineers and building envelope experts to your home, building the technical evidence that proves your builder's negligence and forces them to pay.
Honest Guidance.
We give you a clear-eyed assessment of your claim from day one, so you always know exactly what your home is dealing with and what a realistic recovery looks like.
When It's Your Home, It's Personal. We Treat It That Way.
Hearn & Fleener
Construction Defect Experts.
Don't let a builder's negligence become your problem.
Discovering a construction defect in your single-family home is a different experience than navigating a community-wide claim. You are not coordinating a board vote or managing dozens of residents. You are one family, dealing with a builder who did not deliver what they promised, and likely facing a large national homebuilder and its legal team without comparable resources behind you.
At Hearn & Fleener, we have represented individual Colorado single-family homeowners for over 40 years. We bring the same forensic resources, legal expertise, and litigation firepower to your individual claim that a large builder brings to defending it. We discover the true cause and full scope of the defects in your home, communicate our findings to you in plain honest language, and handle every aspect of the litigation on your behalf from start to finish.
Let’s look at some common construction defects your home could face in Colorado.
Common Defects for Homeowner Associations.
Where do I look?
Finding a Defect
Colorado's climate is uniquely demanding on residential construction. Heavy snow loads, dramatic freeze-thaw cycles, high winds, intense UV exposure, and some of the most expansive clay soils in the country all conspire to expose the weaknesses in any building that wasn't constructed to code. When a builder cuts corners in Colorado, the defects don't stay hidden for long and it is almost always the HOA and its residents who are left to pay for them.
Defects
Community Homeowner Associations.
Drainage.
When a builder fails to direct water away from the foundation through proper grading and drainage infrastructure, water pools against and beneath the home. In Colorado's climate, that standing water accelerates soil movement, foundation cracking, and in the worst cases, basement flooding that causes widespread structural damage.
Foundations.
Colorado’s expansive bentonite clay soils are the leading cause of single-family construction defect claims in the state. When a builder fails to properly engineer a foundation for these conditions, the results include cracked slabs, heaving basement floors, bowed walls, and structural instability throughout the home. Builders frequently misattribute this damage to normal settling to avoid accountability.
Siding.
Improperly installed siding, stucco, and stone veneer allow moisture to infiltrate and become trapped inside the wall assembly. Over time, that trapped moisture causes wood rot, mold growth, and structural framing deterioration that remains completely invisible from the outside until the damage is extensive.
Flashing.
Flashing around windows, doors, and roof penetrations is one of the most frequently defective components in Colorado residential construction. When flashing is missing or incorrectly installed, it creates a direct pathway for water to enter the wall assembly or roof structure, often causing significant hidden damage long before the homeowner notices anything wrong.F
If your house is experiencing any of these issues, you may have a valid construction defect claim.
Decks & Patios.
Decks and patios built with reverse-sloping surfaces, inadequate waterproofing, substandard fasteners, or insufficient lateral bracing deteriorate quickly and pose genuine structural collapse risks. We treat deck and balcony defects with particular urgency because of the serious life-safety implications they present for Colorado homeowners and their families.
Ventilation.
Defective roofing materials and inadequate attic ventilation are a destructive combination in Colorado's climate. Without proper ventilation, heat and moisture accumulate in the attic, accelerating shingle deterioration and creating the conditions for destructive ice dams in winter that force meltwater back under the shingles and into the home.
See why Colorado homeowners choose Hearn & Fleener.
Successful Case Results.
Winning Results for our Clients.
Our case results show why we’re the best.
The following are real results Hearn & Fleener has achieved for Colorado single-family homeowners and communities. Each case involved different defects, different builders, and different communities but the same outcome: full financial recovery for homeowners who had been failed by the people who built their homes. In every case, our clients paid nothing out of pocket, and the funds recovered were used entirely for permanent repairs.
Our Advantage
Proven Track Record.
Golf Course Community.
A large single-family HOA community situated along a Front Range golf course was experiencing widespread soils movement and building envelope failures across more than 120 homes. Hearn & Fleener worked with local civil engineers and forensic architectural experts to map the full scope of the damage and identify every root cause of the building failures. After 22 months of investigation and litigation, we successfully recovered approximately $16 million on behalf of the association, one of the largest single-family community recoveries in Colorado history.
Large single-family community.
$16 million award.
One of the largest recoveries in Colorado.
Widespread soil movement.
A solid foundation makes for a solid building.
Northern CO Community.
A 99-home single-family community in Northern Colorado came to Hearn & Fleener with widespread stucco system failures affecting homes across the entire development. Our team documented the full scope of the cladding defects, identified the responsible parties, and negotiated a significant confidential settlement that fully funded the community's exterior repairs.
99 single-family homes.
Widespread stucco failures.
Affecting all homeowners.
Confidential settlement.
Fully funded repairs.
Rebulding a community to last.
Your Home Could Be Next.
The homeowners behind these results once stood exactly where you are now, unsure whether they had a claim. One phone call changed everything.
Jefferson County.
A 72-home single-family community in Jefferson County contacted Hearn & Fleener after residents began reporting heaving basement slabs, water intrusion through roofing systems, and failures in exterior deck structures throughout the development. Our forensic team identified the cause of each defect category and developed a comprehensive repair scope. The case resolved in the homeowners' favor during trial, while plaintiffs were still presenting their case in chief, resulting in a recovery of more than $2 million for the association.
72 single-family home community.
Failing foundations
Water intrusion.
$2 million recovery.
Fully funding your community repairs.
Real Homes. Real Recoveries.
Every result below started with a homeowner who suspected something was wrong. Each one ended with a builder held accountable and a home made whole, all at no cost to the family.
Fort Collins.
A single-family community in Fort Collins was built on large deposits of bentonite clay without adequate foundation engineering to account for those conditions. Homeowners experienced severe structural damage from soil movement, compounded by water intrusion through defective roofing and window systems. Hearn & Fleener pursued the case through years of litigation that ultimately reached the Colorado Supreme Court, recovering over $3 million for the homeowners association. Just as importantly, the case produced new Colorado case law that strengthened homeowner rights under state construction defect statutes, a legal precedent that continues to benefit Colorado homeowners to this day.
A large single-family neighborhood.
Inadequate engineering.
Roof & window failures.
$3 million award.
A win for homeowner rights.
Righting the wrong.
Rebuilt community.
Proven Where It Counts.
From the courtroom to the negotiation table, our results speak for themselves. When Colorado builders fail homeowners, we make sure they answer for it.
Cherry Creek.
A community of 66 single-family lock-and-leave homes in the Cherry Creek area began experiencing grading and drainage failures, asphalt deterioration, and building envelope deficiencies shortly after construction was completed. Hearn & Fleener documented the full scope of the defects, identified every responsible party, and negotiated a confidential settlement that fully funded the community's repairs, giving homeowners the lasting peace of mind that comes from knowing their homes were finally built to the standard they were promised.
66 homes affected.
Drainage issues.
Confidential Settlement.
Rebuilt to proper standards.
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-phase process comes in.
Take the First Step in Protecting Your Home Before Time Runs Out.
Hearn & Fleener
Construction Defect Experts.
Your Home Deserves Answers. We'll Provide Them, For Free.
Time is the single most important factor in a Colorado single-family construction defect claim. Colorado law imposes strict statutes of limitations and statutes of repose, hard legal deadlines that, once passed, permanently bar you from pursuing a claim no matter how clear the builder's liability may be. In many cases, the clock starts running from the date of substantial completion of the construction, not from the date you first noticed a problem.
This means that homeowners who delay action, even with the best intentions of gathering more information or waiting to see if the problem gets worse, can inadvertently forfeit their legal rights entirely.
The good news is that getting started costs you nothing. A call to Hearn & Fleener sets our free four-phase investigation in motion and gives you the facts, the legal analysis, and the professional recommendations you need to make a fully informed decision. You will know exactly where you stand, what your options are, and what the realistic path to recovery looks like, all before committing to anything.
Contact us today.
Colorado's construction defect filing deadlines are strict and once they pass, your right to recover is gone permanently. If your home has signs of construction defects, the most important step you can take right now is to contact Hearn & Fleener for a free, confidential evaluation.
We will inspect your property, research your builder's construction records, and give you an honest assessment of your legal options — at no cost and with no obligation.
You only pay us if and when you recover. Don't face this alone.