Someone Fell on Your Property: What to Do in the First 48 Hours

Most falls on a Canadian homeowner's property never turn into a lawsuit, and when they do, the claim usually resolves well inside a standard liability policy — that part of the reassurance is genuinely true. What's missing from Canadian consumer advice is the honest procedural playbook for the hours right after it happens, because the instincts that feel responsible in the moment are frequently the ones that make things worse.

This is that playbook, in order: what to document, what to preserve, who to call, what to say — and what not to do until your insurer is involved.

What's the very first thing I should do after someone falls on my property?#

Make sure the person is okay and get them medical attention if they need it — that comes before everything else, always. Once that's underway, start documenting the scene before anything about it changes.

Photograph the exact spot, the hazard itself (the ice patch, the broken step, the loose railing, the wet floor), the lighting, the weather, and the surrounding area from several angles. Note the date and time. If there were witnesses, get their names and contact information while they're still there — memories and availability both fade fast.

The short version: do this, not that#

Almost every instinct people have in the first hour is the wrong one. The pattern is consistent enough to put in a table:

General guidance, not legal advice. Policy wordings and provincial rules differ — your insurer or broker can confirm what your policy requires.

Why does photographing it matter so much, so fast?#

Because conditions change within hours, sometimes minutes. Ice melts. Snow gets shovelled. A wet floor dries. A loose board gets stepped on again and shifts. Weeks later, when a claim actually arrives, the single biggest gap in most homeowners' defence is that nobody has any record of what the hazard actually looked like at the time.

Photograph more than feels necessary. Wide shots that show context (was there a warning, was lighting adequate, was the area obviously used as a walkway) matter as much as close-ups of the hazard itself.

What about video — do I need to save it right now?#

Yes, today. Doorbell cameras, home security systems, and dashcams parked nearby are the single best evidence in a slip-and-fall case, because they show exactly what happened rather than relying on anyone's memory — and a growing number of Canadian civil claims turn on footage like this.

The problem is timing: many consumer systems automatically overwrite older footage on a rolling cycle, commonly somewhere between 24 and 72 hours depending on the device and storage plan. Pull the clip and save it to a separate file or cloud location the same day. Don't wait to see if a claim materializes — by the time one does, the footage is often already gone.

When do I actually call my insurer?#

Today, before you talk to anyone else about what happened. Most Canadian home, condo, and tenant policies require prompt notice of any incident that could lead to a claim, and reporting early is what starts your insurer's duty to defend if a claim does develop later — see Duty to Defend, Explained for what that promise actually covers.

Report it even if the injured person seems fine and says they won't pursue anything. People change their minds, injuries that seem minor at the time sometimes aren't, and an insurer that already has the file is in a far better position than one hearing about an incident for the first time after a demand letter arrives.

Is offering my medical payments coverage an admission that I'm at fault?#

No — and this is the sharpest, least-answered question in this situation. Many Canadian home, condo, and tenant policies include a small voluntary medical payments coverage, separate from your main liability limit, designed to pay modest medical costs for someone hurt on your property regardless of who was at fault. It exists specifically so a reasonable gesture doesn't require either side to argue about blame.

That said, don't freelance it. Confirm with your insurer or broker exactly what your policy offers, what the sub-limit is (often a modest, specific dollar figure — check your own declarations page rather than assuming), and how they'd like it communicated, before you say anything to the injured party about paying for anything. The feature is genuinely no-fault by design; how you present it should still go through your insurer.

Should I say anything to the person who got hurt?#

Express concern for them as a person. Ask if they need help getting medical attention. Don't discuss why it happened, whether you knew about the hazard, or whose responsibility it was — not because you're hiding something, but because you don't yet know how a court or an adjuster will eventually weigh what you say, and neither do they.

The same caution applies to anyone representing them later — a lawyer, an insurance adjuster working for their side, a family member calling to "just get some information." Take down their contact details, say you'll have your insurer follow up, and stop there.

What if I don't have a security camera or doorbell camera?#

Write down what you remember while it's fresh — today, not next week. Note the date, time, weather, what the hazard was, how long it had likely been there, and anything the injured person or witnesses said. A dated, contemporaneous note you wrote for yourself is far more credible later than a memory you reconstruct months afterward once a claim actually arrives.

If a neighbour, a delivery service, or a nearby business has a camera that might have caught an angle of your property, ask early. Footage retention windows apply to everyone's systems, not just yours, and a request made the same week is far more likely to succeed than one made after a lawyer gets involved.

What if the person who fell was doing paid work for me, not visiting?#

A contractor, delivery driver, or anyone working on your property when they were hurt is a meaningfully different situation from a social guest, and it's worth flagging even though it's a topic in its own right. Depending on the relationship and the province, a workers' compensation system (WSIB in Ontario, WCB elsewhere, WorkSafeBC in British Columbia) may be involved instead of, or alongside, your personal liability coverage.

The same first-48-hours steps still apply — document, preserve footage, notify your insurer — but tell your insurer specifically that the injured person was working, not visiting, since it can change which coverage responds and how the claim proceeds from here.

Should I repair the hazard right away?#

Not immediately, if it's safe to leave for a short time — but be careful how you weigh this. Repairing a hazard is not, by itself, an admission that you were liable for what happened before you fixed it. Courts generally understand that reasonable people fix things. But repairing before the scene is documented can complicate the evidence later, because it removes the other side's ability to independently verify what the hazard actually looked like.

The practical sequence: photograph thoroughly first, then repair. If the hazard is an ongoing, genuine safety risk — a step that could injure someone else in the next hour — fix it, but document it as completely as you can beforehand. Safety always outranks evidence preservation; it just doesn't have to come at the cost of it when you have even a few minutes.

What if their lawyer or an "inspector" calls or shows up?#

You're not generally obligated to let anyone representing the other side into your home to inspect anything on your own initiative, and doing so hands over control of the documentation process to people working for the claimant, not you. Take a name and number, say your insurer will be in touch, and pass the message along.

If a formal claim develops, inspections and expert access are typically arranged later through lawyers, on terms your insurer and its lawyer help set — not informally, at the door, in the first 48 hours.

What if I already said something I shouldn't have?#

It happens — people apologize reflexively, out of decency, before they've thought about any of this. An early "I'm so sorry, I should have shovelled that" is a fact your insurer needs to know about, not a fact that ends your case. Tell your insurer exactly what was said as soon as you report the claim. It's one factor among many, not an automatic finding against you.

A first-48-hours checklist#

1. Immediately: check on the injured person and get medical help if needed.
2. Within the hour: photograph the scene, the hazard, and the surrounding area from multiple angles.
3. Same day: pull and save any doorbell, security, or dashcam footage before it's overwritten.
4. Same day: notify your insurer, even if you're not sure a claim will follow.
5. Same day: collect witness names and contact details if anyone was present.
6. Ongoing: say nothing about fault to the injured person, their family, or their representatives — refer everything to your insurer.
7. Before repairing: confirm you've documented the hazard fully, unless it's an active safety risk.

Argued honestly: the overwhelming majority of these incidents never become a lawsuit at all, and most that do settle for modest amounts well inside a standard $1 million liability limit. This playbook isn't about assuming the worst. It's about not accidentally making a small, ordinary incident harder to defend than it needed to be — which costs nothing and takes the same amount of effort either way.

If the claimant's lawyer does eventually send a formal demand or a statement of claim, the sequence continues in I've Been Served With a Statement of Claim. What Happens Next? For the guest-injured-at-a-gathering variant of this scenario, see Guest Injured at a House Party; for the winter version, see Icy Sidewalk Slip-and-Fall.