Duty To Safe Environment

Part of making property livable is providing a safe environment. For example, a property owner has a duty to keep property that he or she is renting to tenants reasonably safe from criminal elements. There is a significant amount of case law that holds property owners liable for criminal actions on tenants. This duty also applies to business owners.While a property owner is generally not required to hire his or her own private police force (although this is not unheard of in dangerous areas), he or she is required to keep visitors reasonably safe from crime (such as providing security cameras and calling the police when there are suspicious characters loitering around). For example, a property owner has a duty to remove suspicious looking characters from the property (such as a person in a hotel that does not appear to be a guest) in order to prevent possible harm to visitors. In at least one case, a property owner was found liable for damages involving a rape (the property owner did not provide adequate security in order to prevent the attack). This principal applies to other forms of harm, such as battery, that can occur as a result of the property owner’s lack of precaution.