Homeowner Liability: How You Can Protect Yourself From Lawsuits
Posted on: 11 September 2017
If you own property, you have increased responsibility for unexpected repairs and damage. You also, however, have responsibility for the safety of people who visit your property. If someone is injured on your property, you could be liable for their injuries if they file a personal injury lawsuit against you. Since these lawsuits can account for medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and other expenses, the costs to your home insurance and your personal assets can be quite high.
The best ways to protect yourself are to prevent injuries from occurring in the first place and to do what you can to reduce your liability in the event that someone does become injured. Here are some tips to consider.
1. Stay on top of home maintenance.
Poor maintenance is one reason why people can be become injured. Broken steps or cracked sidewalks leading to your door are tripping or falling hazards. If your handrail is broken and someone falls and becomes injured, you have increased liability because the fall may not have occurred if you had properly installed or secured a rail.
Other simple maintenance tasks to stay on top of include:
- clearing debris from decks and walkways. If you use your yard for children's toys, car parts, or other items, make sure they are out of the way of people who are coming and going.
- shoveling walks and driveways. Built up ice and snow increases slipping hazards.
- fixing latches on fences. If a child who is visiting your home is able to wander out of the yard because of a faulty latch, it's possible you could be held responsible for any injuries the child sustains as a result of wandering free.
- replacing broken windows and cleaning up clear hazards like broken glass. You don't want guests to cut themselves.
- clearing up yard debris and keeping trees trimmed. It's less likely a dead branch will fall and cause damage if you stay on top of landscaping.
It may seem like a far-fetched thing to mention the accidents that can happen because of simple maintenance trouble, but because you own a property, the law holds you to what is considered a reasonable standard or care.
2. Be mindful about pets and safety.
If you have a dog, horse, cat, or similar pet animal on your property, you need to make sure that you do everything possible to ensure the safety of visitors. For example, if you have a dog who is so large that he pushes someone down by jumping on them, and that person hits their head and suffers a traumatic injury, the fault could be on you if you did nothing to restrain your animal.
Even well-meaning animals can cause harm. Be sure that your yard is fenced. If you have horses, check the fence often to make sure it is still in good repair. Follow city bans for breed restrictions, and do not ignore warnings that come because of an animal's behavior in the past.
3. Take care to secure risky additions.
Certain features of your property might increase the risk of visitor injury. Swimming pool injuries are common, but other features that can increase injury risk include play equipment, tree houses, farm equipment (including ATVs and smaller vehicles), poisonous plants, or even water features like small ponds and waterfalls. Pools should be fenced and covered when not in use. Tree houses should have railings and easy access up and down to help prevent falls. You can switch off fountains and cover ponds when you know you'll have a large group visiting your home, especially of some of the visitors are children.
For more information about homeowner lawsuits and personal injury liability, contact an experienced attorney, like one from Palmetto Injury Lawyers, in your area.
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