If you are injured due to an unsafe condition on someone else’s property, you may have the right to seek compensation for damages such as medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering. However, insurance companies are reluctant to pay claims unless you can prove that the property owner was negligent.
Just because you were injured on someone else’s property does not mean that you have the right to seek compensation. To recover money, you have to show that the property owner failed to maintain his or her property in a reasonably safe condition, and you were injured as a result. One way to do this is by determining if conditions on the property violated building code standards.
Examples of building code violations that can lead to serious personal injury include:
· Missing or defective handrails
· Steps that are too high or deep
· Blocked or improperly marked exit doors
· Missing or nonfunctioning smoke alarms
· Unsafe wiring
· Use of highly flammable building materials
· Missing flashing on a deck, which can cause decks to pull loose from the attached structure
· Lack of a self-locking gate on a swimming pool
In the aftermath of an accident, it’s important to collect and preserve evidence of the unsafe condition before the property owners makes repairs. Pictures from cellphone cameras are a good way to document conditions as they existed at the time of the accident. Witness statements are another good way to document unsafe conditions.
The law firm of Dolan Dobrinsky Rosenblum Bluestein, LLP represents people in the Miami-Dade area and throughout Florida who have been injured due to unsafe property conditions.