Mold Claim Prevention Tips

Mold Claim Prevention Tip: Avoid Negligence Issues

Although I am not an attorney and can not give even the slightest legal advice on mold law and related issues, I want to discuss issues to concern yourself when worrying about the possibility of mold. The purpose of this article is to give you some food for thought and to start to investigate your own company protocols to protect your organization from possible law suits. As usual , anyone reading this article should contact an attorney for any legal advice.

As I was researching for an informative piece on mold issues , I kept running into the term negligence when dealing with landlords, property managers, renters and the complaints about mold.

Let’s talk about negligence. From my research as a lay person who re-mediates ( removes ) mold from households and buildings, negligence seems to be the big issue with Judges and court systems around the country. Negligence seems to be the key issue in awarding settlements to the renter, tenant or occupant.

Negligence among other factors covers issues like avoiding any action or communication of the situation with tenants and occupants. Miscommunication is another negligence issue. For example telling a tenant that it’s not mold or that it’s mold but it’s not the bad kind of mold. There are other issues related to negligence as well. Negligence according to my layman research also includes faulty workmanship that leads to mold issues. Here is an example.

Let’s say you decide to put in new windows in your rental home or building and you get three bids. Of three bids, you notice that the third bid is the lowest and of course you decide on the lowest . You ask the contractor if they have all necessary insurance and if they are a licensed contractor in the state you reside. Of course the contractor says yes I am and you of course believe him without checking his credentials or if he ever performed this type of work.

The work is now completed and next week a big rain comes in and you have leaky windows that have soaked the dry wall. The tenant complains that they see black and green mold caused by the wet drywall and you ignore the complaint, because this tenant complains daily about everything.

The tenant now goes to the doctor and says that their baby is having breathing problems. The doctor does an investigation and determines the breathing problem comes from the mold issue in the home. At this point you get a call from a lawyer , who explains that you are bring sued for a million dollars due to your negligence.

What are the possible negligent issues?

As the building manager or building owner you did not communicate with the tenant in a quick manner. You did not quickly address the moisture issues. You didn’t discuss a possibility of a mold test to determine their concerns. The contractor you hired to put the windows in was not licensed for the project.

Now let’s back up for a second. How is the building owner responsible for a contractor he hired that caused mold issues which caused the health problems. Well according to the negligence factor, there is a possibility that a judge could see that you the building owner avoided using your experience as a building owner to correctly hire a responsible contractor. The questions that could be asked would be:

  • Did you get a certificate of insurance proving that the contractor had appropriate and current insurance. If you didn’t , you will not be able to bring in his insurance company to help pay for the awarded damages, because sadly he has no insurance.
  • Did you ask for his actual contractor license to do work in the state?
  • Did you ask for references from past projects to see if they had the experience to perform good work?

As I explained I am not an attorney or am I giving law advice in this article. The important concept to take from this article is to get informed by contacting your lawyer and making sure that your business practices will not result in negligence issues in the future.

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Tue, 10/31/2017 - 12:33 by mindgrub

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