Hold Harmless Release - Responsibility?

We are having work done on our roof, I need permission from neighbors to gain access for the workers. The contractor will provide a COI, but a property management firm has requested a hold harmless release in addition to the COI.

My understanding is this document will protect all (?) parties from liability should any damage come to building or person. My question is whose responsibility is it to provide. Is it the contractor, the building association and property, me as the owner of the the unit where the work will be done?

Have any of you had any experience with this? I would welcome any help and assistance.

bklyn-born

in General Discussion 6 years and 10 months ago

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krobertson

in General Discussion 6 years and 10 months ago

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Not a expert on this but I’ll give it a shot…

You should ask your contractor to not only provide you a COI but to add you on as an ‘additional insured’ to their insurance policy. The hold harmless is usually signed by your contractor and used to protect you if your contractor does anything that results in damage , injury, or death and you get sued as a result. Its used to shift the burden of liability onto another party. It should usually cover the contractor, their employees and any subcontractors. For example if one of the contractors employees or subcontractors fall down the ladder and sue you, the hold harmless would mean the contractor is responsible for defending you and/or paying any damages.

In the case of accessing your neighbor’s property, if I where the owner and my neighbor wanted to access my yard to fix their house, I would probably want my neighbor (you) and their contractor to sign a hold harmless in case one of them fell down or injured themselves while transiting through my property and decided to sue me. I would probably ask to be added as a dditional insured to the contractor’s policy as well.

Both additional insured and hold harmless are fairly common almost every general contractor I’ve talked to for a recent renovation project have no problems signing it. Though only a few of them included it as a standard part of their contract, so you would have to ask for it.