Property Claims: Excessive Repair Estimate for Tortilla Factory
The Problem
This project was a commercial building leased to a tortilla production company (tenant and defendant) for 15 years. When the tenant decided to not renew the lease and moved out, the owner alleged the tenant failed to repair $145K worth of damage to the property, including drywall, overhead doors, water damage, staining from a rodent problem, and more.
The Solution
In the documents we received were floor plans and photos of the work areas so we were able to measure the quantities of necessary work precisely. We summarized all of our analysis into a tightly formatted 1-page spreadsheet (plus footnotes on a second page) explaining (1.) what was in the plaintiff’s $139,000 total estimate, (2.) what of that was work required by the 15 year old lease, which totaled $100K, and (3.) we identified and explained the $39K of additional work the tenant was not responsible for. Then we (4.) performed our own estimate of the work described in the owner’s estimate. Our total estimate was $84K compared to the owner’s $139K. And (5.) we analyzed that instead of $100K of lease required work, our estimate was $41K, which is where the tenant’s attorney negotiated from.