I am a commercial landlord and my tenants are supposed to have liability insurance, per their lease agreement.
Question by bcpark713: I am a commercial landlord and my tenants are supposed to have liability insurance, per their lease agreement.
I am having trouble trying to get them to obtain insurance because they think they don’t need it,even they they already legally agreed to get it. I have three questions, how can I make sure they get it and also, what are the possible legal repercussions to them(my tenants) and to me(landlord), if they don’t get liability insurance? Am I prone to legal action if any of my tenants are sued?
Best answer:
Answer by kemperk
a; I see no reason why you care
about them having liability ins.
It only affects them if they have
a customer who is hurt doing biz
with then.
b; you are 99.5% fee of liability
in tenant/customer cases.
c; if you still feel adament about it,
prepare to buy some with you
as a beneficiary and then,
send them a bill, with a copy
of the lease.
d; why didn’t you ask to see a copy
of their insurance policy before you
permitted them to sign a lease?
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Tags: agreement., Commercial, Insurance, Landlord, lease, Liability, tenant's
1. Write your lease to say that if they do not buy the insurance and provide you with a certificate of insurance naming you as an additional insured under their policy, then you have the right to buy the insurance and add the payment of the premium on to their rent.
2. Everyone in every business needs liability insurance, because, even if you do nothing wrong, you still have the risk of being sued, and if that happens the liability insurance will pay for the lawyer to defend you. The cost of a defense to a lawsuit can be many 10′s or even 100′s of thousands of dollars. If you have no insurance that cost will come out of your pocket even if you win the lawsuit.
3. The land owner is always at risk for being sued for something like a slip and fall injury, even if the tenant is supposed to be responsible for maintenance. A lawsuit against the tenant does not automatically mean that you are potentially liable, but typically the plaintiff’s lawyer will sue both the tenant and the owner. Furthermore, you want your tenant to be insured so that the tenant is not put out of business by the expenses of defending a lawsuit.
If the commercial lease agreement requires the tenant to show proof of liability insurance and no insurance documents exist then the tenant is in violation of the lease agreement.
The remedy is to send them a letter with a copy of the lease agreement highlighting the liablility insurance language and tell them they have x amount of time to obtain insurance or they have breached the lease agreement and face eviction.
The tenant signed a legal and binding contract.