Sam Older and Sandra Older purchased vacant land in Douglas County seven years ago. They hired an architect to design a house for the vacant land and, subsequently, retained the services of a general contractor to build the house based upon the architectural drawings and information. The house was completed and Sam and his wife moved in approximately six years ago.

Unfortunately, after living in the home for five years, Sandra Older became quite ill and was placed in a nursing home in Denver. The travel back and forth from Douglas County to Denver became too much for Sam Older and, although he loved the house, he decided that he needed to sell it and move closer to the nursing home so that he could easily visit his wife every day.

The house was sold to Bob and Maggie Peterson just under 6 months ago. They love the home; however, two months ago, they realized there were some drainage problems as the basement floor was wet and some puddles formed after a snow melt. They called in professionals and were told that, to correct the problem, they should put in French drains along the perimeter of the house, which would pull water away from the house down toward the road so that the water would drain into the county drainage system. The drainage professionals stated there was some indication of improper grading at the time the house was built. The estimated cost to excavate and install the French drains is $30,000.

The Petersons contacted Mr. Older and informed him of the problem. Mr. Older stated that in his five years of living in the home, he only experienced water in the basement once, after extraordinarily hard rains for three days straight, something that rarely occurs in Colorado. In addition, he pointed out that there were many properties in the Denver metro area that experienced this same problem during the unusually long and hard rains Mr. Older referenced.

It appears that there may be potential breach of contract and/or tort claims against the Olders, the Contractor, and the Architect. Before any litigation is initiated, we need to determine whether these claims are barred by the appropriate statutes of limitations.

Please research and analyze the statutes of limitations issues raised by this set of facts.