Real Estate Law // Construction Litigation

How Hirzel Dreyfuss & Dempsey Can Help

We litigate disputes over real property and over the projects built on it. Construction defects, development gone wrong, competing claims to the same collateral, and the partnership that stops working halfway through a build.

This is trial work. Several of these matters have been tried, and the firm has handled the appeals arising from its own trial work in the Eleventh Circuit and in the Florida appellate courts.

Construction Defect Litigation

Construction defect cases are document cases that become expert witness cases. The question is rarely whether something failed. It is who is responsible, whether the contract shifted that risk, whether notice was given properly, and what it costs to make right.

We have represented a national real estate development company on multi-million dollar claims concerning construction defects and mold growth in a property on Palm Beach Island, tried in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County.

Development Disputes and Ownership Fights

A development partnership that fails is not only a real estate problem. It is a fiduciary duty problem wearing a real estate costume, and it is usually urgent, because the project does not stop while the partners fight.

We have represented multiple real estate developers in disputes with former business partners, including a matter in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County over the ownership and control of six residential developments, involving claims for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and accounting.

Foreclosure, Lien Priority, and Lender Disputes

When a project fails, the difficult question is the order in which people get paid. Competing mortgages, construction liens, mechanics liens, equitable subordination, and the doctrines that decide priority among them.

We have represented a development trust and its trustee in litigation in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit in Lee County, involving multiple lenders, other development companies, the Florida Department of Transportation, and individual counterclaimants, concerning foreclosure rights, priority of interests, inverse condemnation, fraud, negligence, and breach of fiduciary duty.

Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act Claims

The Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act gives purchasers rescission rights against developers of subdivided land, and after 2008 those claims arrived in volume across Florida.

We have represented multiple real estate developers in claims under the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act brought by purchasers seeking rescission and damages, in the Ninth, Eleventh, Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Twentieth Judicial Circuits.

Inverse Condemnation and Government Interference

When a government action takes property value without taking title, the owner's remedy is an inverse condemnation claim. These arise most often from road projects, drainage, access changes, and permitting decisions that render a parcel unusable for its intended purpose.

We have litigated inverse condemnation claims alongside development and lender disputes, including in a matter involving the Florida Department of Transportation.

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