Accidents. Disasters. Technological failures. These things are often outside of your control. But that doesn’t mean someone won’t try to pin it on you.
If a car runs through your gate and now there is unrestricted access to your storage facility, whose fault is it really? Are you liable?
Sometimes you can’t deliver on what you promise for reasons that aren’t your fault.
In these situations, it’s normal to wonder if you’re liable for now-broken promises made in your marketing or rental agreement.
Let’s take a look at what one self storage legal expert has to say on this topic.
The short answer is probably yes: you should always be mindful of liability.
The long answer is a bit more complicated. Most importantly, don’t panic if your security features fail. Just because you should be mindful of liability concerns doesn’t mean you are about to get sued (or that you’ll lose if you do).
You can mitigate these liability concerns with some usually simple, good-faith measures.
Quick Disclaimer: We here at StoragePug are not legal experts or legal advisors. We highly recommend getting in touch with a lawyer in the self storage industry if you want the most legally-sound answer.
We’ve sourced these ideas from such a legal expert, but they’re only presented here as opinions, not guidance.
There are a variety of ways that your facility can suffer from the loss of a promised amenity. In this case, we’re talking mostly about the loss of a security-focused amenity.
Security features are the ones most likely to get someone riled up to consider holding you accountable.
We’re talking about…
You may even have some security features at your facility not represented here. Either way, the ideas we’ll cover are equally applicable.
The situation is basically this: Something outside of your control has caused the security to fail at your facility. The key here is outside of your control—as in, it wasn’t negligence that led to the issue.
Examples include:
In many of these cases, you can probably have the problem fixed fairly quickly so there is little issue. But in some instances, for whatever reason, you may see extended periods of time where a problem persists.
Natural disasters, such as the recent Hurricane Helene, may leave you without a fence and no way to get it repaired in a reasonable timeframe.
Accidents, such as someone driving through a gate or fence, aren’t something you can predict.
Power outages can be widespread and persist for hours, if not longer, and are far outside of your control.
Technology failures at your facility are a little bit more preventable—there could be regular maintenance that would keep them from happening. But it’s also possible for your hardware (or even software) to fail in ways that have nothing to do with how you care for them.
There’s no hard and fast rule for how liability works in these cases. If you’re concerned, I really want to encourage you to reach out to a legal expert.
However, Scott Zucker—part of the Self Storage Legal Network and a well-respected attorney in the self storage industry—had this to say on Gabfocus in regard to a question about a damaged fence after a hurricane:
“There are certain things truly out of your control. Truly acts of god covered by insurance. So in this instance, it’s an act of good faith and due diligence in response to the fence repair.” - Scott Zucker
This answer was in direct response to a question about a fence being down after a hurricane. After a disaster, so many properties are impacted that it can be hard to get a contractor out to do the work quickly.
However, this is probably a good stance to take no matter what the incident was: Do your due diligence. Act in good faith.
Don’t just say it’s out of your control and expect that to protect you.
Do the work to try and resolve the problem. Document the work you do. And find alternative solutions as a stop-gap measure in the meantime.
So, what are some good-faith ways to protect yourself?
Try your best to protect your storage units.
Here are some ideas!
These solutions vary in cost and availability. But the important thing is to show that you understand the problem and that you care about finding a solution.
If someone complains about a gap in the fence and you show that you care so much you’ve hired a security firm to patrol until contractors can make it out, what more can they really say?
We here at StoragePug do our best to help keep people informed about issues related to operating a storage facility. We love being able to help answer your questions!
But we’re not lawyers.
The best information you can find about legal liability for natural disasters at your storage facility (or any other kind of incident) is going to come from an attorney who specializes in self storage.
We recommend contacting such an attorney, or at the very least reaching out to your state self storage association.
Here are some of my other favorite posts to check out!
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