Does The Castle Doctrine Apply To Someone On A Roof?

[redeye202]

Leaking roof, could cause an electrical short and thus a fire, call building inspector and fire chief, or leaking roof could cause mold to form, call building inspector and health department inspector.

These are health and safety issues and your local government has the people to deal with it, use them.

[eyecanshoot]

As far as YOU doing repairs on someone else's property I dont think that is a good idea. YOU too would be trespassing, and if you were to fall through or off of the roof I am sure that you could not claim any kind of liability against the homeowner... Just protect YOUR property... Leave it to the homeowner for his responsibilities...

The owner has abandoned his home but is still legally the owner. The legal owner will give me written permission to do the repairs and will sign a waiver stating I would not be responsible for any damages that may occur doing the repairs. The only other thing to do would be to sue the legal owner but he has nothing and eventually his house is going to sheriff sale.

[eyecanshoot]

You are more interested in knowing if he would be legal in shooting you OVER judging if your actions will get you shot?

Not the brightest bulb

I need to stop the leak. A few years ago I had a local contractor out he inspected my roof. He ended up running roofing down the middle of the two homes and he patched the neighbors roof as far as he could reach over. I basically want to do the same thing because it helped last time. So if considering all the possibilities of my actions is stupid than so be it. I'm only concerned about protecting my home and my family.

[ideaman]

I think you would have the law in your side if you take the owner to small claims court showing to the judge pictures of water damage.

[eyecanshoot]

While you're talking to the actual owner of the home, why not ask them to have trespass violations signed out against them so they can be removed from the property.

My old neighbor the legal owner is old, broke, and very unstable. Its a likely possibility that the owner would not go a legal route and have the guy evicted. I am not willing to push this issue because I dont think it would end well and I want no parts of it.

[Philbert]

Castle doctrine is not a license to kill under any circumstances. It creates a rebuttable presumption that someone breaking into your home intends to do you harm. If you know that the person on the roof is a neighbor repairing damage with the owner's permission, then that presumption is pretty well rebutted.

[eyecanshoot]

Leaking roof, could cause an electrical short and thus a fire, call building inspector and fire chief, or leaking roof could cause mold to form, call building inspector and health department inspector.

These are health and safety issues and your local government has the people to deal with it, use them.

I have gone to the local government many times and it is a complete fail. I really can't go into any of it on a public forum but the local government refuses to help me at all for any reason. I seriously think I need a lawyer over issues with the local gov.

The difference between my neighbors leaking roof and someone else's delinquent property owning neighbor with a leaking roof is I'm willing to spend the time and money to do a temp repair myself with the legal owners written permission and a property damage waivor of course. My situation is also different because the owner of the home is not the resident of the home. The resident of the home is a squatter. I wanted to know can the resident squatter stop me? Could the squatter sue me if I fell through the roof? Could he kill me? I thought it would be worth discussing on a discussion forum.

I'm not looking for a fight with neighbors or the town. I avoid conflict at all costs unless someone is being victimized. Unfortunately I'm the victim but I'm still trying to go out of my way to avoid conflict by paying for and fixing it myself. If I could afford to pay someone to replace the roof I would but I can't afford that. I think I'm being more than reasonable and I'm just trying to do whats best for my family and for my home. I don't want to have to abandon my home especially since I've almost paid it off. On top of paying extra on my mortage I've sunken thousands into mainteince and improvements to my home. I've seen people sue people with nothing and they ended up winning nothing. I've seen others complain to gov and they got nowhere. Should I be expected to go the same route to nowhere?

[DClan]

If the current legal owner abandoned the property, is there any way he might sign over to you, not the property, but the management of the property? Basically giving you the legal standing to handle the eviction and repairs as the property manager until the property is sold?.

[eyecanshoot]

Castle doctrine is not a license to kill under any circumstances. It creates a rebuttable presumption that someone breaking into your home intends to do you harm. If you know that the person on the roof is a neighbor repairing damage with the owner's permission, then that presumption is pretty well rebutted.

Ok so he shouldn't have a defense if he killed me. I'm pretty sure the squatter is prohibited from gun ownership but the uninsured drunk driver that hit me when I was a kid had a suspended license and a warrant for his last DUI so I guess that is pretty meaningless.

I don't think I will have any problems but I figured it would be worth asking here for sure.

[Philbert]

Ok so he shouldn't have a defense if he killed me. I'm pretty sure the squatter is prohibited from gun ownership but the uninsured drunk driver that hit me when I was a kid had a suspended license and a warrant for his last DUI so I guess that is pretty meaningless.

I don't think I will have any problems but I figured it would be worth asking here for sure.

I think you're OK as regards to castle doctrine, but it doesn't sound like your neighbor is the kind of guy who pays attention to the finer points of the law.

I would get the requisite permission from the owner and then tell the neighbor you've got permission from the owner to fix the leak. I can't imagine why he would want to stop you. If he gets hostile then that's a separate problem to deal with.