And if there is an accident in a flat for rent? Who is responsible?

The existence of domestic accidents, often with serious material and personal results, is an undeniable fact. When they occur in a rented dwelling an additional problem can be added, the responsibility of the landlord for those harmful results.

This scenario strongly advises the hiring of a good home insurance for both the landlord and the tenant, policies that should contain as much civil liability coverage as possible, as well as legal assistance in cases where necessary.

We will now examine a series of assumptions, which may be perfectly real:

Tenant breaks his leg when sliding in the shower

shower apartment for rent

To claim compensation from the landlord for the damage suffered, the aggrieved party must accredit the correct use of that shower by one party, with the difficulty that this entails since the proper activity of the body cleaning is usually carried out in the context of privacy and, on the other hand, that the shower was not provided with non-slip material, otherwise the episode from which the damages for which it is claimed falls within the scope of what jurisprudence attributes to the general risks of life, exempt from liability because of the home.

Tenant burns when a pan is on fire while cooking

fry in kitchen apartment for rent

This assumption enters fully into the responsibility of the tenant, who must assume not only the personal damages suffered, but those caused to the dwelling and to third parties, in accordance with the jurisprudential doctrine that, when a fire has been generated within the scope of control of the owner of the thing, whether it is its owner or who is in contact with it, it must be presumed that it is imputable, unless it proves that it acted with all due diligence to avoid the production of the harmful event.

Tenant friend is injured when the ceiling lamp falls

light bulbs in apartment for rent

Presuming in any case the absence of fault on the part of the injured party, the first will be to determine the causes of that detachment, it is clear that if the lamp was placed by the tenant it will be responsible for the accident, on the contrary if it was part of the furniture the leased house, the landlord will be responsible, unless he can prove that the tenant did not fulfill the duty of notifying the deterioration suffered by that furniture.

The tenant's computer and TV are damaged by a short circuit

computer

In this case, the claim can be made to the electricity company if the injured party certifies that the damage was caused by excess voltage in the supply, or to the landlord if that damage was the result of an incorrect electrical installation, or, finally, will have to assume them the tenant if they have been produced by bad use for example the accumulation of electrical appliances that have produced that short circuit.

Tenant's furniture is damaged by flood due to leakage of water

apartment for rent flooded water

It is a case analogous to the previous one, it will be necessary to determine the origin and cause of that leakage of water and it will correspond to the Community of Owners to compensate the injured party if the cause is the breakage of the general piping of the farm, to the landlord if that damaged pipe was private of the leased house, or, as in the previous case, the tenant must assume the damages if the leakage has been caused by his negligence, for example leaving a tap open or not having changed the hose of a driving after observing that he had losses.

To top it off, it is worth emphasizing that if the landlord's insurance company takes care of the repairs and / or indemnities that should have been paid to the tenant, it is more likely that he will later claim them, as in the case studied here.