Legal Question in Construction Law in New Jersey

Construction Defects

The statute of limitations on construction work is six years. The statute of limitation on sale of products (goods) is four years. For the construction work, the time does not necessarily start at the time of completion of work or the time of sale. If the defect was a latent defect (not discoverable by reasonable inspection), a court might be persuaded to "toll" the running of the statute until the time at which the defect was discovered or reasonably should have been discovered. For goods, the time starts to run when the breach of contract occurs regardless of buyer's knowledge of the breach.

If your problem has to do with new residential construction in NJ, you should also know that all such construction in the recent past comes with a warranty. The warranty for various conditions expires at different times. Major structural defects can covered for as long as 20 years. Breach of contract and breach of warranty are different actions. Time to file for a breach of warranty would start when the warranty was dishonored.

Statute of Limitations and Statutes of Repose are exactly the same thing. Actually, "repose" is an equitable doctrine, so "statute of repose" is a misnomor. "Repose" is properly applied to injunctive relief. A judge deciding an equitable issue (as opposed to a money claim)might rule that the complaining party is not entitled to relief because too long a time has past between the event that gave rise to the cause of action and the filing of a demand for relief. Since it is an equitable doctrine, there is no absolute limit; the matter is decided according to the sound discretion of the judge.

Re: Construction Defects

Construction work is contract work, so the statute of limitations is 6 years.

Statute of Repose, is a limitation put on suit. The only example that is popping in my head is a recent federal law limiting law suits on claims for defects in aviation products. In effect the law says you can not sue an engine manufacturer on a failure of say a 20+ year old airplane part. One of the reasons is the FAA is responsible for issuing recalls and who knows what has happened to a 20+ year old part.