www.rcabc.org  l  23 604.295.8070 | vancouver@ircgroup.com | ircgroup.com CONSULTING. ENGINEERING. DESIGN. Bringing the Science of Buildings into Focus IRC Building Sciences Group ROOFING The Future of Roof Design. Planning for Progress. BUILDING ENVELOPE We Believe in Transparency from Concept to Completion. STRUCTURAL Bringing Continuity to Building Design from Frame to Façade. PAVING Generating a Proactive Approach to Maintaining Property Value. VANCOUVER | VICTORIA | KELOWNA been known to have occurred – to start a lawsuit. This is considered the discov- erability principle. When it comes to roofing and construction claims, Breen cited the example of a contractor who installs a roofing system on a building in Vancouver, which is exposed to heavy amounts of rain. Eight years from the original installation date, the owner discovers an issue of wood rot and/or mould. The owner then hires a consul- tant who investigates and determines whether it was an installation issue which led to the water ingress. “If you were to just apply a strict two-year limitation period from when the work was done, the owners in this case would be out of luck because it was eight years since the work was done,” he said. “Applying the discoverability principle, you have two years from the time when the damage was discovered to sue. In this case, although it was eight years after the original work was done, it was within the two-year limitation when the damage was discovered by the owner.” AccordingtoBreen,roofingcontrac- tors protect themselves by taking out general liability insurance on an annual basis. This means that the contractor is covered for claims which may arise within the policy period. Although every policy is different, most insurance policies include exclusion clauses which outline instances where insurance companies would not provide coverage, such as an “own work” exclusion. “If a roofing contractor doesn’t properlyinstallaflashingoramembrane and it must be re-applied, that is gener- ally considered exclusion work,” Breen explained. “The insurance company isn’t going to pay for that because it’s not considered property damage. However, if property damage is caused by water that gets into the building as a result of that shoddy work, that is covered. Once again, the damage would have to be reported within the two-year limitation period.” In addition to the basic limitation period of two years, the Limitation Act also specifies an “ultimate limitation period.” In British Columbia, that ultimate limitation period is now 15 years. According to Breen, the ultimate limitation period provides a drop-dead date for which a plaintiff can sue on work completed. “The ultimate limitation period provides roofers or anyone else running a business with some form of certainty that they aren’t going to get sued for work they did at a certain point in time,” he said. “For example, if a roofer installed a system in 2004, he/she is still susceptible to a lawsuit for that work because it falls under the ultimate limitation period of 15 years.” Once again using the example of water damage – which is the most common in British Columbia – Breen explained that a plaintiff can sue a contractor for damage on projects they completed within the 15-year ulti- mate limitation period, as long as that damage is discovered and reported within the basic two-year limitation. FEATURE