Articles Tagged with Crandall

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Kaufman County is in the midst of a historic residential construction boom. Anyone driving through Forney, Terrell, Kaufman or Crandall will attest to this fact. Neighborhoods are popping up, seemingly, overnight. With that, developers, builders and individual home buyers and sellers are seeing an equal rise in the number of real estate disputes.

In our office, the main issues seem to be with individual home builders performing substandard work or failing to complete the construction of new homes. This can create quite the mess for home buyers who took out construction loans and are now paying their current mortgage, on top of the interest on their construction loan. On top of that, due to shoddy construction practices, they are having to pay additional amounts out of pocket, or reworking loans, in order to have their homes completed. With that, Texas provides certain protections under the RCLA (Residential Construction Liability Act) which protects homeowners in the event that a home builder performs defective or substandard work on a new home. Homeowners are also having issues with eminent domain. Eminent domain/condemnation proceedings have been instituted against several landowners in the last few years for rights of way and easements for utility companies and roadways through TxDot. If you face condemnation for all or part of your property, you need to consult with the attorneys at Guest and Gray. We have successfully negotiated and tried condemnation cases for families and businesses across Kaufman County and East Texas.

For developers, we are seeing issues related to re-zoning and zoning variances, land-purchase disputes, disclosure issues and right of way and easement issues. Many of these issues may be addressed in Court through specific performance, declaratory judgment or a breach of contract case.

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Guest and Gray is Kaufman County’s trusted personal injury and wrongful death law firm. We are proud to serve all areas of Kaufman county, including Terrell, Wills Point, Forney, Kaufman, Kemp, and Crandall, and everywhere in between.

Terrell is Kaufman County’s Budding Business and Recreational Hub

If Forney is the residential complex of Kaufman County, Terrell is its business and recreational hub, and Terrell’s housing market is on the rise. What does this mean for Terrell? People on the roadways. As more businesses and people move into town, Terrell is going to see an uptick in personal injury and wrongful death cases. The numbers simply go hat-in-hand with one another. The bigger the city, the more accidents and deaths related to motor vehicle travel.

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For many folks in Kaufman County, they will never have to deal with the stress and costs associated with civil litigation. However, if you are a small business owner, the chances of litigation will probably go way up. Either you are going to need to sue someone, or they are going to sue you. In today’s world, it is almost an inevitability that if you do business long enough, you will be involved in litigation at some point. Still, for most people, there is still a lot of potential out there for litigation to occur.

Own some rental property? You will probably have to evict someone at some point.  Drive a car? It is always possible that you could cause an accident and get yourself sued. Planning on having some work done on your home, or to build a home? You may end up having to sue a contractor or two.

Listen, the fact is this: lawsuits happen. Deals go sideways. When they do, you need to know who to call. Guest and Gray law firm is the highest and best rated local law firm. Our firm handles various forms of civil litigation, from general breach of contract claims, to real estate issues, landlord-tenant claims, fraud, personal injury, business and commercial litigation, and much more.

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Guest and Gray has been a fixture of Kaufman county for years. We are the largest and highest reviewed law firm in Kaufman county for a reason. We put our clients needs first. That is why more people choose Guest and Gray than any other law firm in Kaufman county. Period.

We have a team of attorneys with various areas of practice. Need a family law attorney? We have that. Need a criminal defense attorney? Yeah, we can do that. Personal Injury? Check.

Real estate law? You better believe it. We have real estate attorneys who know and understand the Kaufman county real estate market, home trends, and legal issues to watch out for, whether it be a residential or commercial property. David HagEstad, a member of our real estate law team, actually sold real estate in the Kaufman county area prior to practicing law. His knowledge of the real estate market and connections to the real estate community, as well as his knowledge of real estate law are a real commodity to our clients.

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Guest and Gray prides itself in being the largest and highest rated law firm in Kaufman county. We are number one because we care about our clients and their situation. Personal injury cases are just that: personal. They happen to real people and it causes REAL problems in their lives. No accident situation can bring more drama to a family’s life than an 18-wheeler accident. These are simply the most destructive types of accidents that can occur on Kaufman county roads. Every year, Kaufman county residents and passers-through die on our local highways due to negligent truck drivers and as our roads become more congested and traveled as a result of development, the numbers will only go up.

Kaufman county is one of the fastest growing counties in Texas. Growth in cities like Forney, Terrell and Crandall will lead the way over the next few years. All three of those cities are corridors in and through Kaufman county with interstate highways and state highways leading right through them. Forney and Terrell have the highly traveled highway 80 and interstate 20 passing right through them and Crandall, as sort of the gateway to East Texas has highway 175. All three cities are gearing up for exponential growth over the next few years as pastureland is converted to shopping, retail and most of all, homes. Crandall has the Wildcat Ranch Development that plans to bring nearly 3,100 unites, which would effectively more than double the population of Crandall alone. Travel anywhere in Forney and you will see new community development and shopping and retail going in, and Terrell leads the way in commercial development. The result of this population increase will be an economic boom. Increased economic out put means an increase in commercial traffic. Commercial traffic means 18-wheelers and other commercial vehicles traveling on our roadways will only increase to meet demand.

At Guest and Gray, our personal injury lawyers see this as being a potential problem for our local citizenry and those who travel our major highways to get to and from home and work. The greater the number of commercial vehicles means that our current and future citizens will be at a greater risk of being injured due to negligent commercial truck drivers as they come into our area. A semi truck, without the tractor-trailer, weighs around 80 thousand pounds, without a tractor-trailer attached. In comparison, the average passenger vehicle weighs about 5,000 pounds. When the two meet at high speeds, the results can be absolutely devastating.

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This is a question that I am asked over and over in my practice: Should I even bother?

It is a good question. A valid question. Why? Because filing suit, hiring attorneys and spending the next year (or more) and thousands of dollars in litigation is not something that should be taken lightly.

So, how do I answer the question? I answer by asking questions. Mainly, it is three questions, with several sub-questions that follow: How much is the case worth?; Who are we suing?; and is there an alternative to filing suit? Once we answer these questions and their follow up questions, I can usually put together a case plan tailored to your case that will help us determine what steps to take first, including whether or not you should even bother filing suit.

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Guest and Gray, P.C. is not only the largest law firm in Kaufman county, we are one of the only full service law firms this side of Dallas. We are the firm to call if you have been injured in an accident, have child custody or divorce questions, need an estate plan or Will, have been sued under a contract or other breach of duty, and many more. Guest and Gray, P.C. has nine attorneys and over 100 years of combined legal experience.

We are trial seasoned and trial ready attorneys who are ready and willing to fight for your rights. Whether it be fighting for Kaufman county residents against forced annexation or fighting voter fraud in our local elections, Guest and Gray, P.C. is here for our local community in ways that no other law firm has done before. We have represented literally thousands of local residents in both civil and criminal matters. No one else can say that. That is why we are the largest and highest rated law firm in Kaufman county.

Have a Civil Matter in Kaufman County? Call Guest and Gray Today! (972) 564-4644. 

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In Texas, a person can find themselves liable for the actions of an animal considered to be “abnormally dangerous”. An animal will be considered “abnormally dangerous” if its dangerous propensities that are abnormal to its class. That means that if the animals breed is typically known for being calm and sweet, yet the animal in question had bitten or nipped at a person in the past, it could be considered to have “dangerous propensities abnormal its class”. A domesticated animal is any animal (i.e. dog, cat, pig, horse, etc.) that is by custom devoted to the service of mankind at the time and place it is kept.

To prove a cause of action for injury by a dangerous domesticated animal, the plaintiff must show that:

1. The defendant owned or possessed the animal;

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In the field of catastrophic injury law, we are often confronted with the question, “What makes an injury catastrophic?” This seems like a reasonable thing to ask, especially since the term “catastrophic injury” can occur in a variety of contexts, from truck and auto accidents, to work place injuries, to prime time television.

The reality is that I can only provide you with a working definition that is widely used by fellow lawyers and also in the medical community. There is no statute or case law that really buttons down what a catastrophic injury is simply because it can take so many shapes.

Catastrophic Injury Typically Means a Permanent Impairment

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Kaufman County is in a weird transitional phase from being a historically rural county with numerous small tightly knit communities to a more commercialized suburban sprawl where the ends of one city meet another.

When many of us originally moved to the area, we did so to “get away” from the sped up lifestyle of the city. However, being good Texans, we embraced the opportunities for economic growth and now Kaufman county is seeing not only incredible growth, but growth that is picking up speed.

Although much of Kaufman county is still rural, with county roads that are lined with small country neighborhoods and small to mid-sized working ranches. However, our cities are becoming bustling centers of commerce and those cities are encroaching on the county roads. Driving down FM 2757, you can see houses over the low rolling hills where Heartland is encroaching on one of the last remaining vestiges of Kaufman county’s relatively untouched beauty. Forney’s population is exploding. Terrell is showing everyone how business and planning for the future is done. Kaufman is growing. Even Crandall and other oft forgotten about areas of our county such as Kemp, Elmo, Warsaw, Talty, all of these areas are seeing growth (the author is from Combine- does anybody remember that Combine is actually a part of Kaufman County?).

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