Here is a question to the blog clinic from Matthew who is a landlord.
If my tenant has reported to me a defect in the common area of the freehold which are not my responsibility to maintain can he sue me if he suffers personal injury as a result and I have notified the freeholder’s agent?
It really depends on the circumstances, and what the defect is.
If it is a part of the property which he uses (which presumably it is) and is a defect with is potentially dangerous (which presumably it is) you do have an obligation to try to get it dealt with by your freeholder.
Just notifying the agent once may not be sufficient to discharge your obligation towards the tenant, particularly if it was something you would be responsible for dealing with, if the common area was owned by you rather than the freeholder.
You may need to do more chasing up if the freeholder fails to get the defect rectified.
In this context you may want to have a look at this post and in particular the comments.
If the tenant wants to make a claim for compensation for personal injury you should try to get him to bring his claim directly against the freeholder as it is the freeholder who is at fault.
However if he persists in claiming against you, it is possible to join the freeholder into the claim as a ‘third party’ so that you can claim back from them anything you are ordered to pay to the tenant.
Note by the way that I am not a personal injury lawyer so am not really able to discuss the finer details of PI claims other than to say that there is a pre action protocol that the tenant will need to follow if he wants to bring a claim, and you may be able to resolve this issue at that stage.