A town built into hillsides has retaining walls, steps, terraces and drops on ordinary residential lots. Each of them is a place somebody can fall and a structure you are responsible for.
A retaining wall is a structure you own. Its condition is your responsibility and its failure can reach a neighbor.
Three things about owning a slope.
Retaining structures hold ground, and when one fails the consequence lands downhill: a neighbor’s yard, a neighbor’s house or a public road. That is a liability claim against the owner of the wall, and it can be substantial relative to anything else on a modest property.
Uneven original stonework, steep steps without rails and unfenced drops are the everyday version of this. A visitor, a delivery driver or a neighbor’s child falling is the claim most likely to actually happen, and it is made against the household.
On a house in this value range, standard liability limits were set with the building in mind. A serious fall injury or damage to a neighbor’s home is not bounded by what your house is worth, which is the argument for a layer above.
The ground as much as the house.
And what sits below them.
The everyday injury exposure on a hillside lot.
Usually sized for the house rather than the slope.
Tell us about the slope, the walls and what sits below the property.
