By Benny L. Kass, Inman News

Q. We built a vacation home in 1989. We recently discovered that the contractor made some serious errors in construction. Evidently, he used poor flashing and waterproofing techniques. We hired another contractor recently to assess the situation. The result was that we had to tear down and rebuild a significant part of the home at great cost.
We contacted the original contractor, who has told us that he has no liability and that the statute of limitations will prevent us from recovering any of our costs from him. Our insurance company says that because the damage was due to contractor error and is long-term damage, it has no responsibility either.
Is the original contractor correct in that he is protected from any action we might take against him? Any other suggestions you might have would be much appreciated. If I have no way to recover some of the cost from the contractor or the insurance company, do you know if I can at least claim this as a casualty loss when I file my tax returns this year?

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