Guidance on developing a Liability Waiver agreement

[Billaban]

Greetings,

In addition to our B&B house we have our cottage on the property that we also rent or use as overflow for the B&B. There is a large pond (13 acres) next to the cottage. We have been intending to develop some sort of liability statement for guests to sign when staying at the cottage, i.e., if you do something stupid in the pond you can't sue us. We have our attorney starting to work on this but thought this can't be a new scenario and perhaps there are templates for this sort of document floating around the internet somewhere. Any suggestions/guidance?

Thanks.

 

[Morticia]

A good thing to keep in mind is that a guest signing a waiver does not mean you won’t get sued.

 

[JimBoone]

Agree with Morticia's comment. Would a plain-spoken document listing the dangers serve the same purpose, "enjoy looking at the pond ONLY, don't feed the Alligators, we like return guests".

 

[GoodScout]

Another recommendation: Put in an arbitration clause. Requires anyone suing you to go to arbitration before they can rush straight to the courts. We have one in our wedding contract, and it has discouraged at least one person from trying to use the threat of lawsuits to extort extras out of us.

 

[Billaban]

Interesting comments. Thanks.