Asbestos in rental

[Tony Nguyen]

Hello,

I have a peculiar situation here. I own a SFH that has been a rental for 16 years. When the tenant moved in, he bumped into some ductwork made of asbestos. This caused the material to come apart and he wanted to have it removed asap.

I complied with his request and used a vendor that he was familiar with.  My tenant is also a contractor.  He states the vendor did a poor job at containing all the asbestos when they were doing the abatement and a lot of his belongings got contaminated as well.  He did not move his belongings away from where the abatement was happening, it sounded like.  He has since moved out, and I agreed to pay for the month’s rent and some of his hotel lodging while he was out.  The house was tested by a certified company and was not found to have asbestos by air sampling.


My question is how much responsibility is each party liable for here?  I know that the landlord technically should disclose the presence of asbestos.  However, I wasn’t aware of this.  The tenant who initially caused this damage - I would think should be responsible for some of the material damage that occurred, as he caused it?

thank you,

Tony