If a tree falls on your mobile home on a rented lot that you rent from another person who is responsible for the damages to the mobile home
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If a tree falls on your mobile home on a rented lot that you rent from another person who is responsible for the damages to the mobile home
This happened in Lancaster’ South Carolina on
the mobile home on a rendered lot on a lot that
we rented from another man the hurricane hit
Lancaster’ and knocked a tree down on to the
mobile home one person owns the mobile home and
know the person owns the land at the trewas own
who is responsible for the damages to the
mobile home
Asked on October 16, 2018 under Real Estate Law, South Carolina
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 5 years ago | Contributor
The landowner would NOT be liable or responsible for the damage unless you could show that you (or someone else) had reported the tree as a falling hazard prior to the hurricane (such as due to it being obviously dead, sick, injured, damaged, etc.), or the tree was visibily a falling hazard *and* the property owner is on that part of the property often enough that they could reasonably be expected to see the condition of the tree. That is, the property owner is only liable if at fault; they are only at fault if they failed to take steps to prevent or mitigate (reduce) a known or obvious risk; if there was no known or obvious risk, and it really was simply the case that an unusually strong storm (the hurricane) blew the tree down, then the landowner did nothing wrong. The landowner is not responsible for the hurricane, and so if the tree did not present a known or visible risk, there was no reason for him to take action about it (e.g. trim it to reduce its weight or cut it down). So you have to show that there was some special risk that landowner was, or logically must have been, aware of, so you can show that the landowner was careless in not addressing that risk, and so at fault. If you can't do that--if it was just that a hurricane blew over a tree--the landowner is not at fault and not liable; the mobile home owner and/or his/her insurer will have to pay.
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