OK, I know this is not the best place to ask, but I am travelling internationally for work, and just got a phone call from home, I am very worried, and don't have a better place to ask at this moment. So please forgive me..
We have rental properties (residential homes), one of which is rented to a close family member(let's call her A) on my husband's side. This relative runs a home daycare out of it on the first floor for years now, and have recently rent out the 2nd floor to a family of 3 (mom, dad and a teenage girl M), all been through background check and came back clean.
Now sometimes the parents of daycare kids would drop off their kids on Saturdays if they need to work, and A would either ask a daycare worker to take care of those kids for a standard fee, or if it's just one kid, the teenage girl M live upstairs may do the babysit by herself for a smaller fee.
I just got word that M got arrested, since a very young girl (no more than 7 year old) accused M of molesting her during babysit and M absolutely denied it. Now I am too removed to the related parties to even begin to guess what really happened (but either way it blew my mind of human capacity of evil and lying).
Shortly after the arrest, the police executed a search warrant and took the daycare's video recording of daily operations (I have no idea how far it goes back, but pretty sure when M babysit on her own it's not on). They also issued a subpoena to relative A, to submit to court all records of employment and attendance history of the daycare, which is well maintained from what I heard.
To make things even more complicated, that family including M, do not have legal immigration status. Supposedly the parents works many jobs for long hours and usually quite and nice. M, and her parents, are NOT an employee of the daycare.
Yes I know we should be more careful what other people do with our properties, we will definitely be much more cautious going forward, if not just selling it off to be over with.
My question is, will my husband and I, as the property owner, be in anyway liable in such situation? To what extend my relative A will be liable personally? She is family, and a nicest person I know, and we need to help her. I am pretty sure the daycare business is done for good with this no matter what really happened. What we should do going forward? what type of attorney we should be looking for? I have not heard anything about lawsuit against A at this moment.
I am still in a bit of shock, as a mother with young children myself, the very thought that a seemly nice teenage girl could do something like this or a young child could possibly lie like that appalls me, but we are living in a strange world. Gosh we need to watch out!
Thanks for reading, any advice is much appreciated. I need to get home quick!