Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Florida
I rent my house out in St. Augustine, FL and I just found out that the neighbor to my home damaged a pipe to my sprinkler system. My tenants just received a $390.00 water bill because of this problem. According to the neighbor the pipe was in his flower bed and he notified the tenants that the pipe had bust and that it will need to be fixed. As soon as I found out about this, I went down to fix the problem, which only cost me 68 cents to fix by capping it off. My question is who is actually responsible for the water bill? My tenants claim that they should not have to pay for this, because the neighbor was the one that damaged the pipe, however, the neighbors complaint is that the pipe was in his yard and he did notify my tenants of the problem.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Your neighbor has a good case. Your sprinkler system was a "trespass" onto his property. It doesn't matter that you didn't know it was there. (I'm assuming that you have since moved this line off his property so that you won't have this same problem in the future).
Your renters should have told you of the problem, and the fact that they allowed the water to flow from the break without notifying you, may violate the terms of your lease, if the lease requires them to notify the landlord of problems with the property. This tenant does not sound like a renter that you will want to keep when their lease expires. It is likely that you are obligated to pay the water bill, so you could offer to split the cost (of the excess use) with the renter, since you are both at fault for the problem. Ultimately, the water bill will be charged to you, as a utility for the property.
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