TL;DR
A hold harmless agreement is a contract clause or standalone document in which one party agrees not to hold the other liable for specified losses, injuries, or claims arising from the work. In construction it flows both ways: a contractor may ask the owner to absolve them of damage from pre-existing conditions, while owners and general contractors routinely require subs to indemnify them for the sub's own negligence.
What it means
A hold harmless agreement is a contract clause or standalone document in which one party agrees not to hold the other liable for specified losses, injuries, or claims arising from the work. In construction it flows both ways: a contractor may ask the owner to absolve them of damage from pre-existing conditions, while owners and general contractors routinely require subs to indemnify them for the sub's own negligence. Several states limit clauses that shift liability for a party's sole negligence, so wording matters and insurers review these before adding additional insureds.
Where it sits in the glossary
Hold harmless agreement is part of the Legal group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
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