Chapter 12 Landlord's Liability for Criminal Activity

• Library: Every Landlord's Legal Guide (Nolo) (2020 Ed.)

CHAPTER 12 Landlord's Liability for Criminal Activity

Comply With All State and Local Laws on Security

Specific Rules

General Security Responsibilities

Keep Your Promises About Security

Don't Exaggerate in Ads or Oral Descriptions

Be Careful With Your Lease or Rental Agreement

Prevent Criminal Acts

Evaluate Your Situation

Take Basic Security Steps

Initiate Good Management Practices

Educate Tenants About Crime Prevention

Inspect and Maintain Your Property

Handle Security Complaints Immediately

Protect Tenants From Each Other

Protect Tenants From Your Employees

Check Your Employees' Backgrounds

Supervise Your Manager

Deal With Drug-Dealing Tenants

The Cost of Renting to Drug-Dealing Tenants

Lawsuits Against You for Harboring a Nuisance

Losing Your Property: Forfeiture Laws

How to Prevent Drug Lawsuits and Seizures

If You Are Sued

No one expects you to build a moat around your rental property and provide round-the-clock armed security. But in virtually every state, landlords are expected to take reasonable precautions to protect tenants from foreseeable harm. This means you must take reasonable steps to:

• protect tenants from assailants, thieves, and other criminals
• protect tenants from criminal acts of fellow tenants
• warn tenants about dangerous situations you are aware of but cannot eliminate, and
• protect the neighborhood from illegal and noxious activities, such as drug dealing, by any of your tenants.

If you fail to take these measures, you could be liable for any injuries or losses that occur as a result.

This chapter discusses landlords' duties created by building codes, ordinances, statutes, and common law created by court decisions to protect your tenants and the neighborhood. It also discusses special issues regarding terrorism relating to landlords and rental property.

If this book motivates you to do only two things, they should be to assess and address your rental's security situation, and to make sure your insurance policy provides maximum protection against the acts of criminals.

To minimize your liability, you must:

• follow state and local laws that mandate security measures
• take reasonable steps to prevent crime
• keep promises you make to tenants about security, and
• buy adequate insurance coverage.


Troubled Property: Is It Time to Cut Your Losses?
If you own property in a high-crime area, you could find it impossible to raise rents enough to cover the costs of providing secure housing and purchasing comprehensive insurance. The truth is that you might be better off selling at a loss than courting an excessive risk that you will be sued for criminal acts on your property. If you do keep high-crime property, consider ways to legally separate it from your other assets—for example, by establishing a corporation or limited liability company.

RELATED TOPIC

Related topics covered in this book include:

• How to choose the best tenants and avoid legal problems: Chapter 1
• Lease and rental agreement provisions prohibiting tenants' illegal activities and disturbances: Chapter 2
• How to avoid renting to convicted criminals without violating privacy and antidiscrimination laws: Chapter 5
• How to minimize danger to tenants from a manager by checking applicants' backgrounds and references: Chapter 6
• Highlighting security procedures in a move-in letter to new tenants: Chapter 7
• Responsibilities for repair and maintenance under state and local housing law: Chapter 9
• Landlord's liability for a tenant's injuries from defective housing conditions: Chapter 10
• Landlord's right of entry and tenant's privacy: Chapter 13
• Evicting a tenant for drug dealing and other illegal activity: Chapter 17.

Comply With All State and Local Laws on Security

You should find and comply with all security laws, both state and local, that apply to you. For information on security regulations, contact your state or local housing agency or rental property owners' association. Here's an idea of what to expect.

Specific Rules

In many areas of the country, local building and housing codes are rich with specific rules designed to protect tenants. For example, some city ordinances require front-door peepholes, intercom systems, deadbolt locks, and specific types of lighting on rental property.

Only a few states have specific laws as to landlords' responsibilities to provide secure premises. For example:

• Under Florida law, landlords must provide locks and keep common areas in a "safe condition." When an assailant was able to enter a rental because of a broken back door lock, the tenant victim was allowed to argue to a jury that the landlord was partially responsible. (Paterson v. Deeb, 472 So.2d 1210 (Fla. Dist. Ct. 1985).)
• All Texas rental units must be equipped with keyless bolts and peepholes on all exterior doors. Sliding glass doors must have pin locks as well as a handle latch or security bar. (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.151-170.)

If you violate a law designed to protect tenants' safety—like a local ordinance requiring deadbolts—your tenants can complain to the agency in charge of enforcing the codes, often a local building or housing authority. The violation might also make you automatically liable for losses that stem from the violation. (The legal term for this is "negligence per se"—see Chapter 10.) This is devastating if you're sued after a crime occurs, because you cannot argue that it was unreasonable to expect you to provide the security measure in question.

General Security Responsibilities

Even if your state and local laws offer little specific direction, you still likely have a duty to keep your premises "clean and safe" or "secure." Some courts interpret tenant safety laws more strictly than others.

EXAMPLE 1: The housing code in Andrew's city sets minimum standards for apartment houses, including a requirement that all areas of rental property be kept "clean and safe." The garage in Andrew's apartment house is poorly lit and accessible from the street because the automatic door works excruciatingly slowly. Andrew adds a few lights, but the garage is still far from bright. Andrew would be wise to spend the money to do the lighting job right and fix the garage door, because conditions like these could violate the "clean and safe" housing code requirement. If someone came in through the substandard garage door and assaulted a tenant, Andrew would likely be sued and found partially liable for the tenant's injuries.

EXAMPLE 2: Martin is a tenant in a state that requires rental housing to be maintained in a "fit and habitable" condition. Courts in his state have interpreted this to mean, among other things, that dwellings should be reasonably secure from unwanted intrusions by strangers. One evening, Martin is assaulted in the elevator by an intruder who entered through the unlocked front door. Martin sues his landlord, Jim, and is able to show that the front door lock had been broken for a long time and that Jim had failed to fix it. The jury decides that Jim's failure to provide a secure front door violated the requirement to keep the place habitable, that he was aware of the problem and had plenty of time to fix it, and that the unsecured front door played a significant role in the assault. The jury awards Martin several thousand dollars for his injuries, lost wages, and pain and suffering.

Keep Your Promises About Security

If you promise tenants specific security features—such as a doorman, security patrols, interior cameras, or an alarm system—you must either provide them or be liable (at least partially) for any criminal act that they likely would have prevented.

Don't Exaggerate in Ads or Oral Descriptions

Landlords know that the promise of a safe environment is often a powerful marketing tool. In ads or during discussions with interested renters, you will naturally be inclined to point out security locks, outdoor lighting, and burglar alarms, because these features might be as important to prospective tenants as a fine view or a swimming pool.

Take care, however, not to exaggerate your security measures. Legally, you are obligated to provide and maintain all amenities you describe. A jury could find your failure to do so a contributing factor in any crime committed on the premises, making you liable for a tenant's losses or injuries.

You won't be liable for failing to provide what was promised, however, unless your failure caused or contributed to the crime. For example, burned-out lightbulbs in the parking lot won't make you liable if a burglar gets in through an unlocked trap door on the roof.

EXAMPLE: The manager of Jeff's apartment building gave him a thorough tour of the building before he decided to move in. Jeff was particularly impressed with the security locks on the gates of the high fences at the front and rear of the property. Confident that the interior of the property was accessible only to tenants and their guests, Jeff didn't hesitate to take his kitchen garbage to the dumpsters at the rear of the building late one evening. There he was accosted by an intruder who got in through a rear gate that had a broken lock. Jeff's landlord was held liable, because he had failed to maintain the sophisticated, effective locks that had been promised.


Ads That Invite Lawsuits
Advertisements like the following will come back to haunt you if a crime occurs on your rental property:

• "No one gets past our mega-security systems. A highly-trained guard is on duty at all times."
• "We provide highly safe, highly secure buildings."
• "You can count on us. We maintain the highest apartment security standards in the business."

Be Careful With Your Lease or Rental Agreement

Your lease and its accompanying documents create a contract, and your tenants have a right to expect and rely on any security measures it mentions.

EXAMPLE: The information packet given to Mai when she moved into her apartment stressed the need to keep careful track of door keys: "If you lose

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