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My friend and I brought a rental house last year in Philadelphia, PA., and it was under construction for few months. While the house was under work, the kids from the neighborhood trespassed to my property a few times, and stole everything in my backyard. In addition, they damaged my basement door and tried to break into the house.

After we noticed the damage in the basement door, we put some barriers (screws, glass and metal wire) on the backyard to prevent them from coming in again. However, they tried to trespass again but this time one of the kid got injured by the barrier we put up. A year later we received a letter from their attorney by regular mail asking for our insurance company contact information. In addition they sent out a certified mail but we didn't accept or sign it.

I called the police when I noticed the injured (some neighbor told me) and the police said we have nothing to do with the injured.

Will they go after me for the loss? I did have insurance on the property. Will it help if I remove everything under my name or sell the property?

Zizouz212
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user4734
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The nature of the barrier is almost certainly the central variable. One can find walls with broken glass embedded in the top face; I assume that the barrier is something like that, and that it is obvious to anyone attempting to scale the wall that they stand a good chance of getting cut. It appears that there is no Philadelphia-specific or Pennsylvania-specific prohibition against such fences, so then the question would be whether damage was caused intentionally. An owner owes no duty to trespassers "on account of the mere condition of his premises". However glass-topped walls are not a natural condition of premises, so we must ask if a purpose of such a barrier is to injure unsuspecting trespassers. Given the factual premise that the hazard is evident, there are no unsuspecting trespassers. Still, that might not deter an attorney, so the next question would be whether this is a reasonable defense of the property. 25 C.J. 1041 states that a person owes no duty to trespassers on his land, specifically saying the rule applies even to a barbed wire fence (assuming the barrier is not alongside the road).

Selling the property or in some other manner washing your hands of the property would not address your existing liability. Sounds like it's time for a lawyer.

user6726
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First, you should definitely contact a lawyer to assist you! My take is that you are liable for the injury and any damage/loss decurring from that. Even if the kids trespassed, the contractor would be liable if the kids got injured due to lack of compliance with contruction safety legal standards. Moreover if you build traps... Just think: If the trap was set to fire a gun (or to drop a concrete block, or whatever...), thus resulting in the kids death, wouldn't you be liable? However, this will ultimately depend on your jurisduction. But if as you mention, they previously had stolen things from your property, you can also fight back pressing charges for that plus trespassing. This might demote them from pressing charges against you.

paul black
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