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Who's Responsible for Water Damage: Tenants or Landlords?

Garfield Stewart • June 1, 2023

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.

Landlord’s responsibility for water damage

The landlord is primarily responsible for maintaining the property. That’s because the landlord would still need to maintain the property even if there was no tenant in it. It is also the owner’s responsibility to maintain the property because of what is known as the warranty of habitability.

 

This is an unspoken assurance that landlords give to their tenants. It affirms that before the landlord leases the home to a tenant, the landlord has done everything necessary to make the home habitable. In order to be habitable, a rental home must have water, be sanitary and safe.

 

But the landlord’s warranty of habitability does not end with providing amenities. The owner must also ensure that the home remains habitable throughout the tenant’s stay. This means preventing anything that makes the home unsafe or unusable.

 

Plumbing issues can make a rental property uninhabitable. If plumbing pipes are damaged and tenants no longer have access to clean water, the home has become inhabitable. If water is unexpectedly released into the home, it can make a rental unsafe and damage the tenant’s belonging.

 

Landlords have two roles as far as maintaining the rental property’s plumbing is concerned:

 

  • Regular maintenance – The landlord is expected to regularly inspect the home’s plumbing to detect wear and tear and resolve minor issues before they become major problems.
  • Plumbing emergencies – If any of the home’s plumbing fixtures is unexpectedly damaged and the home is rendered unlivable as a result, the landlord must take immediate action to solve the problem.

 

The owner of the property has a responsibility to respond in a timely manner to all issues reported by the tenant. If the tenant reports a problem to the landlord and the landlord fails to handle it, the tenant has a right to withhold the rent or sue the landlord.

 

But the landlord is only responsible for damage that happens as a result of the proper use of the home’s plumbing: natural wear and tear. If the water damage to the home is not the result of natural wear and tear, the landlord will fix the damage, but the tenant must pay for it.

Tenant’s responsibility for water damage

The tenant also has a major role in maintaining the plumbing and preventing water damage. This tenant is in a prime position to cause water damage to the building because the tenant is the one who uses the home’s plumbing fixtures.

 

The following are the things tenants are expected to do with regard to the plumbing fixtures in a rental home:

 

  • Tenants are expected to protect the landlord’s property at all times by responsibly using the home’s plumbing. For instance, they should not let pipes freeze by exposing them and they should not flush items into the drains.
  • The tenant – being the main user of the home’s plumbing – is expected to detect issues and report them to the landlord. If the tenant fails to report a problem on time or report it, the tenant could become liable for the problem.
  • If there are problems with the plumbing, the tenant is expected to take immediate action to minimize the damage to their own and the landlord’s property. For instance, the tenant should shut off the water supply during emergencies.

 

Where a tenant fails to do the above, that tenant will become partly or wholly responsible for the resulting water damage.

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