Homeowner gets sued by a handyman:
Insurance coverage and responsibility is a concern for companies and individuals operating in housing and vacation rental business. The lawsuits can become expensive and complicated if one does not have adequate insurance coverage and is not prepared for the rainy day. A good example of this is the unlucky events that occurred to the Abiche family and a handyman working for them in their house.
In 2009, Cortez, a handyman from California, was working for Mrs. Abiches and her son who wanted to significantly remodel their Pasadena, California house. Even though Mrs. Abiche’s son was not a general contractor and did not have a contractor’s license, he applied for all the necessary construction permits from the city and hired an architectural firm to draw up the improvements. He also obtained bids from and hired various contractors to perform the work, including Octaviano Cortez.
On the first day of work, Cortez walked on the roof of the house which collapsed and Cortez suffered a fractured spine. On September 2nd, 2009, Cortez filed a lawsuit against the Abiches claiming that they were responsible for the injury for negligence (failure to warn and failure to make the work area safe) and premises liability.
This scenario is a nightmare-come-true to basically anyone in the housing business. Lawsuits like this take a significant amount of valuable time and money of the people involved with the case. The key and most important thing is to make sure you are covered for these kinds of accidents.
Unfortunately, due to the complex law, many homeowners and VRBO’s are unaware and uninformed of the coverage one needs to be covered from all kinds of different law-suits.
Lawsuits like this can be avoided with the coverage included in Barefoot’s comprehensive packages. In addition to having proper documentation and insurance, Barefoot is totally customizable to your local laws and regulations. By partnering your vacation rental company with Barefoot, nightmares like this become much more avoidable.
http://www.rhlaw.com/blog/homeowner-sued-by-subcontractors-injured-employee/
