Other people injured on your property

[mbaldw]

Hi folks,

a few years ago we bought a semi-detached house and share some access with our neighbours. The shared access includes a hard standing at the back of the property that we own, but our neighbours have the right to park their car on and leave their bins on. Abutting the hard standing are two small plots, one owned by us and the other by our neighbour, on which sheds are built. Quite often their young children are seen playing on the hard standing and around behind our shed and on a couple of occasions have fallen and hurt themselves. Now our neighbours are reasonable people and we've not had any issues so far, but a friend of mine recently told me that, as it's our property, we are legally liable if the parents decided to sue. I was surprised by this because I had assumed if the injury happened behind our shed it's private property and they would technically be trespassing, while on the hard standing they'd be responsible provided we hadn't left anything there to deliberately cause the injury.

Can anyone clarify the law on this, please?

Cheers,
Marc.

[stevemLS]

Re: Other people injured on your property

Under the Occupiers Liability Act 1957 you are liable for injury caused to you visitors by the state of your land/buildings if you knew or ought to have known that such a risk existed.

The Occupiers Liability Act 1984 extended that duty of care to people other than lawful visitors (including burglars).

So, yes, if the children are playing on your land and it is in a state, you could be liable for any injury they suffer.

[judgemental24]

Re: Other people injured on your property

I agree with StevemLS

Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100

It is how you define a reaaosnable level of care to your neghbour and negligence.
Accidents will and always happen. But as stated if you are aware of a hazard, or any other reasonable person would conclude a situation being a possible hazard then you can have a claim for negligence against you if you failed to rectify that hazard.

Put simply you have a duty of care to others, even on or wth your own property

[des8]

Re: Other people injured on your property

Endorse what has already been said but would add that Section 2 of the 1957 Act specifically states that an occupier must be prepared for the fact that children may be less careful than adults. This means that there should be a higher duty of care placed on the occupier when children enter the premises.

To put your mind at rest Occupiers liability is often covered by your household contents policy. Check to see yours does, and the amount of coverage. If it isn't already included you may be able to add it.

[mbaldw]

Re: Other people injured on your property

Thanks for the responses guys. So it looks like I am liable and should check my contents policy - if it covers burglars, it makes sense that it also covers uninvited, unsupervised children! Unfortunately, our neighbours' back fence (which did separate their garden from the shed plots came down last winter and hasn't been replaced, meaning that their children have unrestricted access to the plots and hard standing. What's worse is that I often don't know they're even there because the area is partially obscured by a bush and tree when viewed from our house, This makes it tough to apply the higher duty of care set out by the 1957 Act if I don't know they're on your property in the first place. I have some lumps of concrete behind our shed waiting for me to take to the tip and I'm a bit concerned the kids could injure themselves on these while playing up there. Looks like I need to arrange a clearance trip this weekend.

Thanks again for the clarification. I love these forums!
Cheers,
Marc.

[judgemental24]

Re: Other people injured on your property

You will find that is why public play grounds with swings etc now have that rubber flooring instead of concrete.

Kids do not realise danger and it is simply putting in control measures to limit risk

[mbaldw]

Re: Other people injured on your property

Thanks Judgemental24. Out of curiosity, is there any legal responsibility on parents to supervise their children and/or take steps to prevent them gaining access to private property?

As I said, I'm lucky that our neighbours nice folk, but I'm glad I checked.

Cheers,
Marc.

[judgemental24]

Re: Other people injured on your property

The legal age of criminal responsibility is 10

The law considers a person to be a child until they reach there 18th birthday under parental resonsibility

[mbaldw]

Re: Other people injured on your property

Okay, so the law considers that you know the difference between right and wrong from the age of 10 (am I interpreting criminal responsibility correctly?), but your parents are still responsible for your welfare until you're 18. So does this imply that the parental responsibility is lessened from 10yrs onwards? So, up until 10 the parents have a responsibility if their kids do something illegal (steal, trespass, damage something, etc.). After their 10th birthday the kids can be expected to know that what they're doing is illegal, but if parents know about it/see it happen they should still be taking action to stop it?

Apologies for protracting this discussion, but I am genuinely interested. I had always thought that neighbours would be responsible for stopping their kids doing something they shouldn't do, or being somewhere they shouldn't be. On reflection, it seems that the responsibility falls to me to take reasonable steps to keep kids out, rather than expecting the parents to take steps to stop them coming in. A difficult thing to address when they have legal access to the hard standing if one of the kids skateboards into our car and injures themselves.

Cheers,
Marc.

[judgemental24]

Re: Other people injured on your property

doli incapax was repealed/abolished during the James Bulger case.

Prior to the age of criminal responsibility being 10, The law held that crimes and responsibility were decided on the childs maturity and age in that they did not know what they were doing was wrong.
It applied to the age group 10-14

[mbaldw]

Re: Other people injured on your property

Okay, thanks judgemental24. I'll leave you in peace now. :tinysmile_grin_t:

Cheers,
Marc.

[stevemLS]

Re: Other people injured on your property

Just to add - "skateboarding into your car" would just be an accident which would not attract any liability on your part (unless the car was, for example, badly crash damaged and had jutting out sharp bits of metal or whatever).

Parking your car on a hardstanding does not, itself, create a risk to visitors, lawful or otherwise.

[mbaldw]

Re: Other people injured on your property

Thanks for that stevemLS. That's reassuring, at least.

Cheers,
Marc.

[stevemLS]

Re: Other people injured on your property

Marc - in those circumstances, if your car was damaged by the skateboarder they may in fact be liable to you for the cost of that damage.

So, even better!:tinysmile_twink_t2:

[des8]

Re: Other people injured on your property

Marc - in those circumstances, if your car was damaged by the skateboarder they may in fact be liable to you for the cost of that damage.

So, even better!:tinysmile_twink_t2:

But if the skateboarder is only 9 years old, hope you have comprehensive insurance!!!!!!!!!!!