Premises liability and the contractor chain
A significant portion of premises liability claims in New York involve conditions created or maintained by contractors and service vendors rather than by the property owner directly. Slip and fall claims, elevator accidents, and building systems failures often have a third-party defendant at their origin: the elevator maintenance company, the snow removal contractor, or the plumbing vendor whose work created the dangerous condition.
Before the AVOID Act, property owners defending these claims could develop the third- party theory over time through discovery. The new law requires that any third-party complaint be filed within 90 days of serving the answer. Discovery has not concluded by that date. In most cases, the answer itself is filed before meaningful discovery has occurred.
The implication is that pre-litigation document organization is now a litigation necessity. Property owners and managers must be able to identify, retrieve, and review the governing vendor contract within the first week of service. Without that capability, the third-party option may be lost before it can be properly evaluated.
Vendor contracts and indemnification provisions
Real estate operators often maintain long-standing service relationships governed by contracts that were executed years or even decades before the AVOID Act took effect. Those contracts may contain indemnification provisions that are adequate, inadequate, or entirely absent. The AVOID Act does not change what those contracts say, but it compresses the time available to find out.
A vendor indemnification provision that requires the vendor to defend and hold harmless the property owner is the foundation of a contractual third-party claim. An insurance procurement requirement that obligates the vendor to name the owner as an additional insured supports a failure-to-procure claim if the COI does not reflect that coverage. Both claims must be asserted within 90 days of the answer.
Property owners should conduct a forward-looking audit of their vendor contract portfolio before litigation arises. Contracts that lack adequate indemnification and insurance procurement language should be renegotiated at renewal. Contracts that cannot be located at all represent a more immediate problem.
COI tracking for property managers
Property management operations that rely on email-based COI collection face a structural problem under the AVOID Act. A COI that was received at contract signing two years ago and has since expired, or that was received but never verified against the contract requirements, provides no protection. When service is made and the 90-day clock begins, the question is not whether a COI was ever collected but whether the COI on file reflects current, conforming coverage.
Long-term maintenance agreements, elevator service contracts, cleaning and janitorial services, and parking management contracts each require annual COI renewal. A property with 20 active vendor relationships may have 20 COIs expiring on different dates throughout the year. Tracking these expirations manually is feasible for a small portfolio and increasingly unreliable as portfolio size grows.
At minimum, property managers should maintain a spreadsheet or database tracking each vendor, the contract term, the required insurance specifications, and the current COI expiration date. When a claim arises, this document enables rapid identification of the applicable vendor, retrieval of the governing contract, and confirmation of current COI status all within the first 24 to 48 hours after service.
FULL ANALYSIS
The AVOID Act and real estate: premises liability defense gets harder
Full analysis of the AVOID Act's impact on real estate owners and property managers, covering vendor contract requirements, COI tracking, and response protocols for premises liability claims.
Read the full analysis →Key impacts for property owners and managers
- Premises liability defendants need immediate access to contractor agreements
- Maintenance and service vendor contracts must include clear indemnification provisions
- Insurance procurement requirements must be verified against actual COIs on file
- Long-term property management relationships require updated compliance processes
- Third-party complaints against vendors must be filed within 90 days of serving your answer