It was close to Christmas when my property manager called me and gave me the bad news: one of the tenants was celebrating his son's birthday and invited the boy's uncle to the party. They got into altercation and the uncle was asked to be out. While waiting in the detached garage, he started fire to keep warm and got the fire out of control. The folks detained him before he can flee till the police came to put him in custody. But the damage was done and the entire garage was ruined.

The insurance company covered the expense for restoration except for $1k of deductable and more than $6k of non-recoverable depreciation (insurance policy). Though they started subrogation process to collect that $1k deductible from the perpetrator, I doubt I can recover anything from that guy. My neighbor's garage was also affected and he wanted me to go after the tenant to try to recover anything for my loss and his loss. I talked to my property manager but he said no because he has spoken to two of his attorneys and they both said that the tenants are not liable. Therefore he is not going to threaten to sue them for his loss. If the next door owner wants to sue someone he should go after the uncle who is named on the police report as the person responsible.

So the whole thing seems unfair to me. I am not sure about the attorney's stand on this: the perpetrator was invited to the party, their altercation caused subsequent events to occur. Anyone on this forum ever ran into this situation? Is there anything a landlord can do to minimize his loss? Should the tenant be at least responsible for part of the damage?