A federal ruling just narrowed the window for someone to sue your firm over an old accessibility problem in a building you designed or built years ago — and that's worth knowing whether you're a GC, an architect, or a developer.

HUD has rejected what's called the 'continuing violation' theory in Fair Housing Act design-and-construction claims, according to a legal analysis published by JD Supra. In plain terms: for years, some plaintiffs and advocacy groups argued that a multifamily building built without required accessibility features (wide enough doorways, accessible routes, the works) was violating the FHA every single day the building stood — which meant the clock on when you could be sued never really ran out.

HUD's position now says otherwise. If a building's design and construction happened once, at a fixed point in time, the violation is tied to that act — not to every day the building continues to exist afterward. That matters because the FHA has a two-year statute of limitations, and 'continuing violation' theories were the tool plaintiffs used to get around a clock that had already run.

This isn't a green light to build non-compliant multifamily housing — new construction still has to meet FHA design-and-construction accessibility standards, full stop, and HUD complaints and DOJ enforcement on live violations aren't going anywhere. What changes is the exposure tail: a GC or developer who built a multifamily project a decade ago now has a clearer, shorter window in which an old design claim can even be filed.

Why it matters to you: if you're a multifamily contractor or developer carrying insurance or reserves against old projects, this is a data point for your risk conversation with counsel and your carrier — a claim that's outside the new, narrower window has a much harder time getting into court. It doesn't undo any claim already filed, and it's a federal administrative position, not a court holding that binds every circuit yet.

What to do now: if your firm built FHA-covered multifamily housing more than two years ago and you're carrying any reserve or watching any live claim tied to accessibility design, get this ruling in front of your construction counsel now — the analysis of exactly how 'once built' versus 'continuing' gets applied to your specific project is not something to guess at from a news summary.