How do you manage liability in your garden?

For anything to do with the garden and pool
Soupdragon
Posts: 41
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2015 10:13 pm
Location: North Yorkshire
Contact:

How do you manage liability in your garden?

Post by Soupdragon »

Or...is this game worth the candle?

In the middle of refurbishing my parent's house (in North Yorkshire) for letting next year. House sits in the middle of an historic, Capability Brown, park - and it would be nice to let visitors roam in there.

However, most of the park trees are getting towards the end of their life and in high winds they are dropping branches. There's also a stream.

So there are foreseeable hazards. I could manage these by a combination of warnings in the terms and conditions and public liability insurance I suppose. Or I could simply forbid visitors from going in there which would a real shame.

My problem is I don't have any idea how much that insurance would cost and I'm worried it's likely to be expensive. I'm also worried that no insurer will touch this unless we commit to a regular programme of tree surgery and that's going to end up in conflict with managing the park design.

Does anyone else have to arrange public liability insurance for gardens/streams/outdoor hazards? I have a feeling this might become more of hot topic since the sad Air BnB disaster went public: https://medium.com/matter/living-and-dy ... .xhjtiwvvu
User avatar
teapot
Posts: 842
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:08 am
Location: Loire valley

Post by teapot »

Caveat on the T&C's If you are totally risk adverse best you stay at home.
Adopt Newtons 1st law,
Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it,
ERGO it was fine before you touched it!

We cut off branches that are dead, in fact a big program of doing that right now but you can't cover every out come and so insurers will always have a get out because that is the loss adjusters job to find the angle not to pay.
Passivpool Energy "A" rated Swimming Pools, the most efficient, lowest running cost pools in the world
Bunny
Posts: 3387
Joined: Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:48 pm
Location: South of England

Re: How do you manage liability in your garden?

Post by Bunny »

Soupdragon wrote:However, most of the park trees are getting towards the end of their life and in high winds they are dropping branches.
Herein lies your answer. If you know the trees to be unsafe then you are liable no matter how many warnings you give in your T&Cs. Only a program of maintenance will suffice for health and safety. We and our neighbour have large trees which boarder the roadside. During a storm a few years ago a tree came down and killed a motorist. The tree was just the other side of our dividing fence and so easily could have been ours. My neighbour will never get over the tragedy and the resulting prosecution, and is now obsessive about maintenance. We maintain ours too but I worry every time there is a storm. I wouldn't even consider letting guests near dangerous trees unless you can show that you have done everything to lessen any risk.
newtimber
Posts: 1945
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:57 pm
Location: Brighton
Contact:

Post by newtimber »

You need to get a qualified person to do a risk assessment on the trees.
There are tree surgeons etc who do this and they write a report on the condition of each tree specifying the work that needs to be done and when it needs to be re-inspected.
Bunny
Posts: 3387
Joined: Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:48 pm
Location: South of England

Post by Bunny »

newtimber wrote:You need to get a qualified person to do a risk assessment on the trees.
There are tree surgeons etc who do this and they write a report on the condition of each tree specifying the work that needs to be done and when it needs to be re-inspected.
+1
Soupdragon
Posts: 41
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2015 10:13 pm
Location: North Yorkshire
Contact:

Post by Soupdragon »

Thanks chaps.

We had some trees taken down by tree surgeons about 18 months ago which were too close to the road. We are replanting in the park as well.

I don't think the remaining trees are dangerous unless you're standing under them in excessive wind. We won't be letting the house in the winter so the risk is slight, but like you say, I couldn't live with myself if there was an accident.

The other challenge is that it's listed on the register of historic parks blah blah which I think might mean restrictions on the nature of the work that can be done. But on the other hand, surely not on maintaining/removing risky trees?

Sigh. I need to do some homework, don't I? Looks like the idea of getting an expert report is the way ahead and in the meantime I obviously need to exclude people from the park. A real shame...
kg1
Posts: 2347
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2010 4:23 pm

Re: How do you manage liability in your garden?

Post by kg1 »

Soupdragon wrote:Or...is this game worth the candle?

In the middle of refurbishing my parent's house (in North Yorkshire) for letting next year. House sits in the middle of an historic, Capability Brown, park - and it would be nice to let visitors roam in there.

However, most of the park trees are getting towards the end of their life and in high winds they are dropping branches. There's also a stream.

So there are foreseeable hazards. I could manage these by a combination of warnings in the terms and conditions and public liability insurance I suppose. Or I could simply forbid visitors from going in there which would a real shame.

My problem is I don't have any idea how much that insurance would cost and I'm worried it's likely to be expensive. I'm also worried that no insurer will touch this unless we commit to a regular programme of tree surgery and that's going to end up in conflict with managing the park design.

Does anyone else have to arrange public liability insurance for gardens/streams/outdoor hazards? I have a feeling this might become more of hot topic since the sad Air BnB disaster went public: https://medium.com/matter/living-and-dy ... .xhjtiwvvu
I hadn't seen that article - my goodness it puts the fear of God in to you.
Soupdragon
Posts: 41
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2015 10:13 pm
Location: North Yorkshire
Contact:

Post by Soupdragon »

It's really tragic, isn't it?

And rather underlines how important it is to treat this professionally.
Post Reply