When tenants live on your property, there’s often a certain expectation of safety and protection for themselves and their property. They expect a safe unit to live in, functional window and door locks, a safe place to park their vehicle without risk of preventable damage, and other similar security measures. If something happens on your property – if a tenant is attacked in the parking lot, or their car’s broken into, or their unit robbed – that trust may be shattered, and you may be wondering what your responsibility is. Are you liable? Can a tenant break their lease or even sue you?
Here’s what you need to know: if an action you took (or didn’t take) left your rental property insecure, then yes, you may be liable. At the very least, your tenant should be able to securely lock any entryway into their unit. This includes functional window locks or other security measures. As for damage or robbery to vehicles, that may depend on whether or not the car is located on your property and the laws in your state.
If you have not provided a sufficiently secure unit, your tenant may be well within their rights to break their lease. Likewise, if they reported a problem to you (like a lost key or a malfunctioning lock) and you didn’t take steps to remedy the problem, then you may also be held responsible and they’ll be able to break their lease.
However, if a robbery or other crime occurred on the property because of the tenant’s actions (they left their door unlocked, for example) or due to forced entry (indicating that the unit was properly secured but was damaged in order to commit the crime), then you likely wouldn’t be considered at fault, but you would be expected to repair damage and reestablish the unit as secure as quickly as possible. For issues that occur off of your property or break-ins to a tenant’s personal property, like their car or storage unit that you do not own or control, you’re unlikely to be held responsible.
You may want to make sure you’re providing a safe, secure environment for your tenants by going above and beyond the standard call of duty. Functional locks are a necessity, but what about gated entry, or on-site security, or even alarm systems? These are all optional additional security measures, but choosing to provide them to your tenants may increase the appeal of your property. As always, the golden rule of being a good landlord is listening to and respecting your tenants’ concerns. If they’re worried about safety, consider their position carefully.
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