Rental Property Investor · San Antonio, TX · Member since 2019 · 31 posts · 22 votes
I am buying a house this week. I am planning on renting out several of the bedrooms. I have been thinking about what ramifications the virus may have in a house hacking situation. Obviously, the health risks are real and I am considering that. But what about potential legal liability? What if one of your tenants brings the virus into the house and someone else catches it? Will insurance cover this if there is a lawsuit? Should our leases be modified to include language addressing the risk? Any suggestions, comments are welcome. Thanks.
Based on some suggestions from @Brenden Mitchum something along these lines...may be some legal experts can share their thoughts.
Tenant understands this is a shared living and with that comes risk of exposure to contagious/infectious diseases including COVID-19. Tenant must follow the public health and safety guidance set forth by Centers of Disease Control and Prevention as well as state and local governments. Landlord will provide a separate document "Roommates agreement for maintaining health and safety and preventing the spread of COVID-19". Tenant agrees that Landlord accepts no liability if Tenant gets exposed to any contagious/infectious disease while residing at Leased Premises.
I have been considering the same issues while looking for a house hack of my own. My advice would be to talk to a local RE attorney. They will be able to help you word some kind of protective covid clause into your lease. Or they may tell you that you have nothing to worry about as there is no legal action to be taken in this scenario. I am not sure but this is the person you will want to talk to.
Please, feel free to message me anytime if you have questions or just want to chat!
@Darrell Brown & @Brenden Mitchum, I'm curious if either of you guys reached any conclusions on this matter. I am also considering house hack possibilities and am wondering the same thing. More broadly, I’ve been wondering how this new form of liability exposure may extrapolate across all rental property businesses. For example, what if a contractor we hire to fix an issue transmits covid-19 to our tenant? or vice versa? I did some googling and came across this article which seems to offer the most insights regarding whether homeowners insurance will cover a lawsuit of this nature:https://www.bizjournals.com/memphis/news/2020/04/14/breaking-down-homeowners-liability-insurance.html TL;DR: If your policy excludes communicable diseases, then you can bet you're not covered. If it does not, there's a better chance it will be covered but still far from a sure bet.
I looked into my policy which seems to pull from this standard form: https://www.iii.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/HO3_sample.pdf . Interestingly, the Communicable Disease exclusion only corresponds to "transmission of a communicable disease by an 'insured'." Since I'm the only insured on my policy, the way I interpret this all is that as long as any transmissions in my rental properties don't originate from me, then any related lawsuits are *probably* covered so long as no one was intentionally infecting anyone. But I'm no attorney or insurance broker- just a dude with a propensity to get to the bottom of things. Personally I think it'd be a smart idea to bake some sort of clause into a house hacking lease that removes Landlord of such liability and asserts Tenants are aware of and assume the risk of covid-19 transmission in such a co-living arrangement. Who knows if that'd hold up in court though? I'm interested to hear how that compares at all to any advice that you all may have received, and if there's anything that you're able to share on the topic these days.
Hi Rob. I have not reached a conclusion, other than what you say about inserting a clause into the lease. In fact, this post has not received the attention I thought it would. Maybe, everyone has it figured out? More likely everyone is hoping it won't come to that. I have two empty rooms that I could rent, but I am waiting for the vaccine. If I hear anything, I will let you know. Darrell
Hi Darrell, I just stumbled across this topic and am definitely interested in the answer as well. I'm planning on house - hacking in January and talking to an attorney about leases a little bit before then, so I'll ask about this for sure. Assuming that someone else hasn't already come by to answer it by then or that Congress hasn't passed some blanket business liability provisions that include real estate, I'll come back and post what I learn!
@Darrell Brown, I’m also a bit surprised this new form of liability for landlords with covid-19 hasn’t been discussed much on BP. Unless I’m missing it in my search of the forums...
@Joel Bullock, thanks for planning to share what you find out. looking forward to hearing it.
@Darrell Brown I can understand your concern and getting a profressional opinion is always the best thing to do. However whats stopping you from putting a clause in your lease, its your property and a private enterprise. If your not breaking laws or contridicting yourself then why not set your terms and conditions and if someone is willing to agree, so be it. Its a freemarket and they dont have to rent from you.
I agree with @Savolia Spottswood: The best solution here is to just write it into the rental agreement. Something that says they understand it is a co-living space and with that comes risk of exposure to transmitted diseases, including COVID-19 and agree to not hold you responsible for any potential transmission. You can even set rules about them having people over if you want to protect yourself and the rest of your house from increased exposure.
Or, you can do what most people are likely doing - wing it and hope for the best.
Thanks to both of you for your input. I came to the same conclusion in May that a lease paragraph addressing COVID is necessary. I am also going to ask USAA, my insurance company, about this. I am not in a hurry though. I can handle the payments easy enough, and I don't want to get the virus myself. I will probably wait for a vaccine.
Hello, I am renting out muliple rooms and I am also looking for some advice on COVID liability.
Did anyone come up with a template after talking to legal experts? I am going to add something in the lease agreement on my own.
I also found this from University of Washington and updated it accordingly as general guidelies . I am sharing it with my tenant as part of the Lease Agreement package. www.washington.edu/coronavirus...
Based on some suggestions from @Brenden Mitchum something along these lines...may be some legal experts can share their thoughts.
Tenant understands this is a shared living and with that comes risk of exposure to contagious/infectious diseases including COVID-19. Tenant must follow the public health and safety guidance set forth by Centers of Disease Control and Prevention as well as state and local governments. Landlord will provide a separate document "Roommates agreement for maintaining health and safety and preventing the spread of COVID-19". Tenant agrees that Landlord accepts no liability if Tenant gets exposed to any contagious/infectious disease while residing at Leased Premises.