A property manager receives a maintenance request from a tenant who reports a broken heater during winter. The property manager delays the repair for three weeks, and the tenant suffers property damage from frozen pipes. Who may be liable for the damages?
Correct Answer
C) The manager and possibly the owner, because the delay breached a duty owed
Three weeks on a broken heater in winter is a failure to act on a duty the manager took on under the management agreement, and the owner can be answerable too, both for the condition of the premises and for the acts of an agent within the scope of the engagement. Other choices: making the tenant alone responsible for all property damage ignores who was asked to fix the heater; making the owner alone liable on the ground that an owner is always liable for property conditions leaves out the person who sat on the request; and frozen pipes here are not an act of nature but the consequence of a repair not made.
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Related Topics & Key Terms
Key Terms:
Related Concepts
A legal relationship in which one person (the agent) is authorized to act on behalf of another person (the principal) in business transactions with third parties.
The legal ending of an agency relationship, which can occur through completion, expiration, mutual agreement, breach, death, incapacity, or bankruptcy of either party.
The fiduciary obligation to protect a client's private information and not disclose it to third parties without permission, surviving even after the agency relationship ends.
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