DC developer pays $400,000 to a condo association after losing its appeal
DC developer pays $400,000 to a condo association after losing its appeal
2026-09-09 · District of Columbia · Courts
A District of Columbia developer will pay $400,000 to a Ward 4 condominium association to reinforce a building that owners said swayed in the wind — after the Court of Appeals held the District could order it to fix a property it had already sold. The Attorney General announced the settlement on May 7, 2026.1
The building is 4022 Georgia Avenue NW. The paying parties are Steven Sushner, 4022 Georgia Avenue LLC and DV Investments, Inc. The money goes to the association, earmarked for “structural reinforcements and other repairs needed to ensure the safety of the unit owners and the community.” Owners also receive proceeds from 4022 LLC's bankruptcy.
What owners reported
Residents reported that high winds made the building move: cabinets swinging open, dishes breaking, and wall cracks increasing in number and width with each wind event. Inspections found the building had been constructed in violation of District regulations, with insufficient structural support. The Attorney General's office described a building that was marketed as safe and structurally sound and was “anything but.”
The appellate decision that made the settlement possible
The developer fought the order to correct through the Office of Administrative Hearings and then the Court of Appeals, and lost. 4022 Georgia Avenue, LLC v. D.C. Department of Buildings, No. 24-AA-0543, was argued May 15, 2025 and decided July 17, 2025. Chief Judge Blackburne-Rigsby wrote for a panel including Judge Shanker and Judge Crowell, sitting by designation.2
The developer's argument was that the agency could not direct an order to correct at an entity that no longer owned the property. The court disagreed, holding that the hearing officer did not err in finding 4022 LLC was the entity responsible for correcting the violations — and grounding that conclusion in the condominium warranty statute. District law, the court observed, requires sellers of condominiums to warrant against structural defects, and the finding “could have” been made “based on the language of Section 42-1903.16(b) alone.”
What this gives a DC association
Three routes, not one, now stand between a District condominium and a developer that built badly.
The private warranty claim. D.C. Code § 42-1903.16(b) warrants the common elements and each unit against structural defects for two years — from conveyance of the unit for a unit, and from conveyance of the first unit or completion of the element, whichever is later, for common elements. The developer posts security, and the Department of Housing and Community Development administers claims against it. That process is covered separately in our report on the warranty claim procedure.
The code-enforcement route. This case establishes that the Department of Buildings may issue an order to correct to a former owner-developer, using the warranty statute as the source of responsibility. That matters because it does not depend on the association filing anything, and it does not run on the two-year warranty clock in the same way.
Consumer-protection enforcement. The settlement was reached under the Consumer Protection Procedures Act, and the recovery went to the association rather than to individual owners. In a District with no milestone-inspection statute and no structural-integrity reserve mandate, the Attorney General's consumer-protection authority is operating as the enforcement mechanism of last resort for construction defects in owner-occupied housing.
What this means for a board
Document the condition, early and in writing. What made this case actionable was a documented physical phenomenon — movement in wind, with observable consequences — reported by owners and then confirmed by inspection. An association's own engineering report is the artefact that starts every one of the three routes above.
A developer's insolvency is not the end. 4022 LLC went through bankruptcy, and owners still recovered from it and from the individual and the affiliated entity. Boards frequently conclude that a dissolved or bankrupt developer means there is nothing to pursue. That conclusion is often reached too early.
A recovery to the association is different from a recovery to owners. Money paid to the association funds a repair that benefits everyone and is spent under the board's budget authority. Money paid to individual owners does not fix the building. Which structure a settlement takes is worth negotiating deliberately.
What to watch next
Whether the Attorney General does it again. One CPPA settlement is a data point; a second would make this a programme, and would tell DC associations that a referral is worth making. Nothing in the announcement commits the office to a repair deadline or to ongoing monitoring, so the follow-through at 4022 Georgia Avenue is itself the thing to watch.
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