Quote Quoting frankb
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I passed on the acquaintance's suggestion to my wife that we contact our insurance company, but she's a little leery of doing so as she feels they might even cancel the insurance altogether at the prospect we might install a sex offender in the house, regardless of how many years it's been since he offended.
Your wife imagines that if she calls her insurance company for risk management advice, they'll terminate her policy? Insurance companies offer risk management to help them avoid claims.
Quote Quoting frankb
From another perspective, we ran it past our realtor today while looking at another property we're interested in, and he said he'd have no issue renting out the house under the circumstances, both because of the individual's clean slate for 25 years and because it's a matter of public record on the man's status if people wish to check online. In his words 'when was the last time you heard of a landlord being sued because the tenant committed a sex crime?'. Obviously he's no lawyer, just someone with 20 odd years of experience in the industry.
So... with no law that supports your believe you might be liable, no facts to support your belief that you might be liable, no awareness of any case in any U.S. jurisdiction that supports your belief that you might be liable, and with people experienced in the trade telling you that they are not aware of any reason to believe you would be liable... you're stickin' to your guns! So why even ask the question?
Quote Quoting frankb
The other point I'm thinking of is that I know when it comes to lawsuits it's generally a case of chasing the party with the most money, and I'm wondering if anything did happen whether it might not in actual fact be the county that gets targeted for a lawsuit rather than us, as they were the ones who officially gave us the all-clear and told us that the couple could take up residence in the neighborhood, and they were also the ones who stated that they saw no necessity to post any warnings in the area other than the general listing on their own web site. It's tenuous, but you think such a scenario gets us off the hook in the unlikely event something happened?
You have quite the imagination, but a lawsuit based only on imaginary facts and imaginary legal principles won't last long in court. (You're thinking this guy might rent from you?)
Quote Quoting frankb
As I've said, this is proving really tough on us.
Only because you're choosing to make it tough on yourselves.
Quote Quoting frankb
We're doing everything possible to make it work for this couple, especially the wife, but the bottom line is that we also have to think of our family's financial security.
By "doing everything possible" you mean, "Ignoring everything everybody tells us, and choosing not to discuss liability with our insurance company"? Come on.