Even if you never saw anyone step onto your property without first receiving your permission, you might still have to deal with a trespasser on your premises. Your words and actions could change an intruder into a trespasser.
If your property featured an inviting path, and did not have any warning sign, then you could easily experience a visit from an intruder. If you were to confront that same intruder and ask him or her to leave, any delayed reaction on the intruder’s part could turn him/her into a trespasser.
Intruders have responded to what is known as “implied permission.” Yet the legal theory of implied permission does not apply between 9pm and 6am.
What sort of delayed reaction could turn an intruder into a trespasser?
Intruders are not supposed to loiter, after being asked to leave. What is loitering? It is wandering around without a final destination. Intruders are not supposed to prowl, after being asked to leave. What is prowling? Someone that appeared to be moving about in a secretive fashion would be prowling.
Could the owner of a property be sued for injury to a trespasser?
Trespassers assume the consequences for any risks that they might encounter, after stepping onto a property with some type of warning sign. If there had not been a warning sign, then the owner could be held responsible for any injury to the trespasser, as per personal injury lawyer in Georgetown.
Suppose a contractor was working on a property and left some machine on that same premises, when leaving at the end of the working hours. Then suppose a trespasser came onto that same premises and got injured. Could the owner be held liable for those injuries? If the owner had not recognized and marked that foreseeable risk (the contractor’s machine), then the owner could be held liable for the trespasser’s injury.
All property owners are expected to check for the existence of any foreseeable risk. Should an owner discover such a risk, he/she is supposed to mark it with a warning sign. That should limit the number of either intruders or trespassers that might step onto the same owner’s property.
So, according to the law, there is a difference between an intruder and a trespasser. Yet neither of those individuals has a right to invade the privacy of the property owner. By the same token, both of the same individuals have the right to expect a warning sign on any foreseeable risk, when stepping onto someone else’s property. Consequently, there could be a time when some stranger got injured, after stepping onto land that did not have any warning sign. In that situation, the stranger would have a right hold the owner liable for injuries.