News from the Courts - Bad Tenants!

What do you do with the drunken tenant? Be very careful is the answer. And make sure your insurance is up to date is another.

A professional landlord owned a house divided into a number of flats. It was built at about the beginning of the last century. To get to the front door there was a path flanked by two walls approximately two feet high. Once there had been railings on top of them but they were probably removed during the war. To the side of one wall there was a drop of nine feet down to solid concrete in the basement area. On the day in question one of the tenants was returning home. He had been doing some work for a friend and he was carrying a heavy bag of power tools. He was an alcoholic and he had had a drink or two (or three) on his way home. Sadly, he fell over the wall, landing on the concrete below and suffered paraplegia. He gave various different accounts of how the accident happened but nonetheless decide to sue his landlord.

The judge decided that what had happened was that the tenant had sat on the wall and that he had lost his balance and so fallen backwards into the basement area and that this was partly because of the heavy bag he was carrying and partly because of the excessive amount of alcohol he had drunk. But, said the judge, the landlord owed a duty of care to the tenant and he had broken it. He should have taken such care as was reasonable that people using the path could do so safely. This was a professional landlord and he could have taken advice. He had to cater for all types of tenant including those who used the house, in other words, this tenant and students. The judge thought it was reasonable to expect such tenants to return home drunk and the wall in question was an inviting seat. The landlord should have considered the danger and done something about it. A simple handrail would have been cheap and easy to fit and would have returned the house to its original condition. The landlord was, therefore, liable. But in this case the tenant had largely been the author of his own misfortune and the judge decided that he had contributed to the accident to the extent of two thirds. The landlord (and so hopefully his insurance company) was liable for one third of the tenant’s damages.

Martin Follett