Last month the Oregon Supreme Court recognized and seemingly affirmed a strategy to reduce taxable property value due to the existence of construction defects. In Oakmont, LLC v. Oregon Dept. of Revenue (2016), the owner of an apartment complex valued at approximately $21million negotiated with the county assessor to reduce the taxable value by sixty and seventy percent respectively for two years. The owner sought a similar reduction for an earlier tax year based on the presence of a "likely error" in the assessor's valuation then, but was denied. read more

A few months ago, we wrote about the Oregon Supreme Court's decision in Rice v. Rabb and its potential impact on the statute of limitations for construction defect claims. We believed at the time that the case represented a welcome step forward in finally (favorably) resolving a split among the trial courts in determining when a construction defect claim could be barred due to the passage of time. read more