Injury on Rental Property

If you live in a rental property in Greenville, North Carolina, you’re living on someone else’s property. And even though you are paying to live there, the landlord has a legal duty to maintain a safe premises at all times within reason. You could have what’s known as a slip and fall accident in the common areas of the building and require medical attention as a result.

These kinds of accidents with injuries can quickly become more complex than they appear to be on the surface. It’s important to learn more about what goes on after a slip and fall accident on rental property.

Defining a Personal Injury on Rental Property

A landlord who doesn’t keep up with maintenance on their property is creating hazardous living conditions. While that may sound dramatic, it doesn’t take much to put someone’s safety at risk. For example, carpeting in a poor condition with holes, a broken or loose step, or a leaking downspout could create a puddle that later turns into ice.

Getting injured as a result of these conditions and ones like them means the landlord put his residents in harm’s way, especially if the problem was known and no action was taken. What needs to be at the core of this type of injury is neglect on the part of the landlord or his employees and your acting in a reasonable manner.

Who is Liable?

Sometimes the cause of the incident is clear and the blame falls squarely on the landlord. Then there are accidents in which it is more difficult to determine who is responsible. When a landlord or an employee is aware of the hazardous condition and fails to fix it, the blame is more likely to be on the landlord or employee.

In the event that you contributed to the accident in some way, you may find that you share some of the blame for the accident and could possibly not be able to recover damages. That doesn’t mean that you can’t take legal action, however. The fact still remains that the condition existed and the odds of you getting injured would be very low had the problem not been there in the first place.

Another example of liability comes in the form of notification. This means that you contacted your landlord and informed him of the hazard some time before you were injured. The fault especially lies with the landlord if you made attempts to work around the hazard to prevent yourself from getting hurt. Alternatively, if you were aware of the hazard and failed to notify the landlord, you may bear more liability.

Understanding the Use of Reason in a Personal Injury Case

There are times that a hazard arises and there isn’t sufficient time to fix it before you get injured. There are also times that you may act reasonably by notifying the landlord of the condition and nothing gets fixed in a reasonable amount of time.

These types of accidents get thoroughly investigated by the insurance adjuster or opposing counsel and the standard of reasonable person gets applied to the situation. If you’re unsure as to what liability you bear or if you acted reasonably, contact us at (888) 484-6881 to talk about your accident and learn more about what we can do for you.

Greenville, NC Personal Injury Attorneys

I’m Brian Ricci, a Personal Injury Lawyer in Greenville, NC. If you have suffered a personal injury, please call me anytime at (252) 777-2222 or (888) 484-6881 for free, friendly advice. Let’s go over the details of your accident case over the phone and see how best to proceed. The call is free and there is no obligation to you.

I am a longtime member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum. We are a group of top rated US trial lawyers with multi-million dollar settlements and case verdicts for the injured clients we have served.

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