There are many good reasons to keep your property as well-maintained as possible. Some of them concern the law. If the unit or building gets in rough enough shape, the tenant may have legal justification to use the rent payment to pay for maintenance, stop paying rent, or break the lease and leave. You also risk personal injury lawsuits if someone’s hurt on your property because it’s in such bad condition.
You must comply with applicable laws and lease or rental agreement language, but how isn’t always clear. If you have questions about your obligations to maintain your property, want advice on preventing problems, or are accused of failing to keep the property up, AWB Law, PC can help. Call at (949) 244-4207 today to schedule a consultation.
Obligations Due to the Landlord-Tenant Relationship
The California Civil Code states that landlords must ensure that the space must be habitable and safe for tenants. This includes:
- Waterproofing and weather protection for exterior walls and the roof
- Plumbing and gas lines that comply with building and fire codes
- Hot and cold running water
- A code-compliant heating system
- Functional lighting
- Your building and grounds must be kept sanitary and free of debris and vermin
- Sufficient trash bins or dumpsters
- Well-maintained common areas, including floors, stairways, and railings
- Locks that are up to code, including dead-bolt locks on the main, swinging entry door, and windows that open must have functioning locks
- Working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors
- A structurally sound building
- Corrected mold issues
- Eliminating pest infestations
You can also add responsibilities through a rental agreement or lease. If you offer amenities to increase the unit’s value, you commit yourself to maintain them in the lease. Maintaining means periodic inspections, repairing and replacing what wears down or is damaged.
Maintenance includes cleaning common areas, so they don’t become a hazard or attract insects or vermin. It also covers repairing the property due to unforeseen events like a fire, storm, flooding, or a damaged pipe. The exterior must also be kept up to code and local ordinances.
Actions to Prevent Personal Injury Lawsuits
Under California’s premises liability laws, you may be liable for injuries on your property if the cause is your failure to maintain it properly. Possible plaintiffs could be tenants, family members, guests, or contractors you hire. If an employee is injured on the job on your property, you could also face a workers’ compensation claim. Depending on the circumstances, even a trespasser may have a valid lawsuit.
Negligence is a legal theory that attempts to make those responsible for injuries compensate the victims. The party does something or fails to do something and causes an injury. Because of the relationship between the landlord and the injured person, the landlord must use reasonable care in maintaining the properly, so it’s safe.
The property owner is negligent if they fail to use reasonable care to:
- Keep the property reasonably safe
- Discover unsafe conditions and repair, replace, or adequately warn of anything that could be reasonably expected to cause harm
There are almost endless scenarios that could leave a landlord potentially liable for injuries on the property:
- Electrical wiring and equipment aren’t up to code, cause a fire, and injure a tenant
- Damaged handrails give way when a tenant’s guest walks down a flight of stairs, she falls and is injured
- You know that locks on a window don’t function, but you don’t fix them. An intruder opens the window and sexually assaults a tenant
- You’re aware of a malfunctioning water heater, but you don’t fix it, and a tenant’s child is scalded while taking a shower
- Your property is in a high-crime area. The outside lighting has burned out but isn’t replaced. A tenant is beaten and mugged in the darkness
In deciding whether you used reasonable care, a court can consider:
- Your property’s location
- How likely someone would visit your property
- How high the risk of harm
- The probable severity of the harm
- Whether you knew or should have known about the dangerous condition that creates the risk of harm
- How difficult or costly it is to protect against the risk of harm
- How much control you have over the situation creating the risk of harm
Someone injured because you failed to maintain the property could seek compensation for their:
- Permanent physical limitations
- Pain
- Suffering
- Mental anguish
- Anxiety
- Effect on relationships
- Past lost wages and benefits and losses that are reasonably expected in the future
- Past medical and rehabilitation costs and those reasonably expected in the future
You should have liability insurance to cover these claims and a legal defense. That doesn’t mean you won’t face any costs:
- You’ll have a deductible to pay. There are limits on what the insurance company will spend and exclusions on some types of claims which your insurer won’t cover
- You’ll need to cooperate with defending your claim. That may take much time. You will need to talk to the insurance company adjuster or investigator and provide copies of documents and security camera footage
- There will be meetings with your attorney, and you may be deposed (answer questions by attorneys for both sides under oath). If the case doesn’t settle, you must prepare for and participate in a trial.
- Your policy’s premium may increase, or your insurer may drop its coverage
Depending on the facts, failing to maintain the property in violation of relevant laws covering your obligations to your tenant can be used as evidence of negligence.
The Worst Case Scenario
If you don’t maintain the property, it violates safety and fire codes, and someone is seriously injured or killed, you could face criminal liability. These cases are rare, but they happen.
A manslaughter charge may come about if there is a fatal fire in a building with missing smoke detectors (or they lack batteries), there aren’t proper fire escapes, or electrical systems violating safety codes cause the fire. Depending on the facts, a landlord may face criminal negligence charges if someone’s injured.
We’re Here to Help
If you’re a residential landlord with questions or concerns about your need to maintain your property or you’re involved in a dispute with a tenant about its condition, AWB Law litigates and fights on behalf of its clients. They’ll work closely with you to evaluate appropriate legal strategies and develop a plan to help you reach your goals as efficiently as possible. Call AWB Law, PC at (949) 244-4207 or complete our online contact form today.
