Skip to content
General Landlording & Rental Properties

User Stats

264
Posts
102
Votes
JT Spangler
  • Buy and Hold Investor
  • Nashville, TN
102
Votes |
264
Posts

Frozen pipes because tenant left door open -- who's responsible?

JT Spangler
  • Buy and Hold Investor
  • Nashville, TN
Posted Feb 23 2015, 11:59

Situation is this: tenant informs me that the door to the walkout basement (currently unfinished/storage) is open, but that nothing seems to be missing/damaged. Hypothesis: the wind blew it open. I tell him to just close it up and I'll take a look next week when I'm in town. 

Then, the worst icestorm of 30 years comes through, and the pipes freeze. Come to find out, the basement door actually was torn off of 2/3 hinges and is frozen wide open, so zero degree wind is whipping into the basement, clearly causing the pipes to freeze.

Now, I'm gonna fix them, no issue (good tenant with a good relationship), but it occurred to me that I'm not entirely sure where the liability lies on this one.

Clearly, the fact that he didn't accurately report to me the status of the basement door was the reason the pipes froze, but I'm not totally clear on whether or not that has bearing here.

Thoughts?

Loading replies...