Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Ohio
injury on a rental property
My husband and I have a rental property. The tennant rarely pays rent, but does repair and maintence for us. He has rented this mobile home for about 10 years, and has been a good renter, basically. He put in a 12 x 3 ft. deep pool. He only had 2 feet of water in it, and was drunk last week, and dove into the pool from a railing on the deck he built. He broke his neck in 3 places, and is currently in a Columbus, Ohio hospital awaiting surgery. He is going through DT's now, so surgery should be in the next couple of days. He has NO insurance, No savings, and NOTHING of any value. We are not concerned about him sueing, but my question is, can the hospital sue us as the land owners? We carry property insurance on our own home, but not on the rental property. Thank you.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: injury on a rental property
To address your 1st concern - no the hospital cannot sue you. You have no contract with them and haven't caused them any loss.
In today's world, my guess would be that your tenant might find a way to sue you however. I'm not suggesting he will win but the suit could be very expensive to defend.
My 2nd comment is that you can't have too much insurance protection.
You are probably typical in being worried more about liability than defending the law suit. If you are sued and win but spend $75 k defending the suit doesn't an insurance policy make more sense. Unfortuately, you can't buy insurance for this mishap but my suggestion would be to become insured asap.
Michael Buschbacher
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