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As the owner of a rental property, one of the things your tenants expect from you is that you keep a tight maintenance schedule for the property. Maintaining the systems and structures of your rental property will protect your business and ensure the best relationship with your tenants. A key aspect of maintaining a rental is assigning responsibility when the building is damaged. Landlords and tenants need a transparent method for deciding who should pay when things go wrong in the rental. This is one of the most difficult aspects of the landlord-tenant relationship. Nowhere is this issue more prominent than when looking at the best way to assign responsibility for water damage in a building. Why is it so hard to determine the responsible party when water damages a rental property? Firstly, the risk of water damage in a rental property is very high because of the presence of water in almost every part of the building. Secondly, since the home’s plumbing system is mostly hidden, it can be hard to tell when there is a problem with the system. Thirdly, due to the high risk of water getting out of hand and the difficulty of knowing when this happens, water damage can be costly to fix. As a result, both landlord and tenant are keen to avoid the expense of fixing damage caused by water. But since water damage is almost inevitable in a building, finding a way to deal with this issue is paramount. Between the landlord who owns the property and the tenant who lives in it, who is supposed to bear the burden for fixing water damage? Who should shoulder this responsibility? That is the question this post will answer. Keep reading to see how the law says the issue should be resolved.