My rental home burned down due to electrical issue. I had notified landlord and local power company of a problem with service. (specifically power surges that damaged electrical appliances.)

I do not have renters insurance.

Does the landlord have any responsibility for my property? Either personally or via their homeowners insurance?

Maybe. If you can prove that you notified them of a dangerous condition and they did nothing to repair it AND that condition caused the fire then they may be held liable.

Thank you. Legal proof may take awhile. I would need to hire my own expert, who could testify as to cause of fire. But would I seek damages from LL or his insurance co. In other words, is his homeowners responsible for damage caused by his negligence?

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Originally Posted by esq716

Thank you. Legal proof may take awhile. I would need to hire my own expert, who could testify as to cause of fire. But would I seek damages from LL or his insurance co.? In other words, is his homeowners responsible for damage caused by his negligence?

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You would sue the homeowner, who would tender the defense to the insurance company. And yes, the company is probably liable if the policy owner is liable.

But proof of liability may be very difficult if, as I suspect, the appliance that cause the fire was destroyed in the fire. I recently represented a landlord in a case involving a toaster. We got a favorable settlement, but the proof was a lot more complex than one would imagine. You are going to have to prove, among other things,

• which appliance caused the fire;
• that the power surge caused the damage to the appliance; and
• that that damage caused the house fire.

I also would guess that they will claim you were negligent in not unplugging the appliances until the problem was corrected.

And I'm going to ask WHY you didn't have renter's insurance. Its cheap and would have protected you.

It is and should be your insurance ( renters) that would pay you. His insurance has no liability to pay you, unless you can prove .

It was some fault of the system. *** fire marshal report of what started the fire. If the fire department does not find and list the cause of the fire, you may not have enough evidence for a case. So if they do not find it, you may have to hire an investigator to do so quickly.

If it was found to be a fault in his wiring, and you were not responsible at all. Then you need to prove and show that he was notified by you of this problem. So do you have proof of delivery of a letter about this to him?

Then you sue him ( insurance will pay if you lose or may try and settle during law suit) But you sue him using your evidence