DOYLE, Presiding Judge.

Meloda Sneed filed a personal injury suit against Place at Midway, LLC (“Midway”), and Pinnacle Property Management Services, LLC (“Pinnacle”), and others.^[1] The trial court dismissed Sneed’s claims against the Defendants based on a time-limitation provision in the lease agreement between Midway and Sneed,2 and Sneed appeals, arguing that the trial court’s order should be reversed under the Sneed to a new apartment. This apartment contained a ceiling fan, and Sneed contended that she was injured on January 29, 2021, when the defectively installed and repaired ceiling fan detached from the ceiling of her apartment and hit her in the head, knocking her unconscious. Sneed alleged that she had made a repair request to the Defendants prior to the incident, that a repair had been scheduled to occur prior to her injury, and that it was repaired negligently or not at all prior to her injury. Sneed’s September 12, 2022 complaint alleged various instances of negligence against the Defendants related to these two incidents, including failure to exercise reasonable care in maintaining the property, failure to keep the premises and approaches safe, failure to warn, and other negligence that discovery may reveal. It is undisputed that Sneed filed the complaint within two years of each incident under the statute of limitation for tort claims.^[5]

Midway and Pinnacle answered and moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that Sneed’s claims were time barred because the lease contained a one-year time- limitation provision for claims against the management company or owner. The provision at issue stated: Limitations on Actions. To the extent allowed by law, Resident also agrees and understands that any legal action against Management or Owner must be instituted within one year of the date any claim or cause of action arises and that any action filed after one year from such date shall be time barred as a matter of law.

Sneed responded to the motion, arguing that the provision was identical to a provision considered by the Georgia Supreme Court in Langley,6 in which the Court addressed whether the contract barred the plaintiff’s personal injury claims after she fell on the property grounds.^[7] The Court explained that the language was ambiguous, meaning either that it applied to any action the plaintiff conceivably could file against the defendants or that it applied only to claims that arose from the contractual relationship itself, and because of the ambiguity, it construed the language in favor of the non-drafting plaintiff.^[8] The Court concluded that the language was limited to claims arising from the contract, and therefore, it did not apply to the plaintiff’s claims

6 307 Ga. at 321-322.

arising from premises liability tort law.^[9] In explaining its holding further, the Court stated that

[t]he law establishes a contract claim arising from a breach of [the defendant’s] duties under the lease and OCGA § 44-7-13, separate and apart from a premises liability tort claim arising from [the defendant’s] duties as a property owner to keep the premises safe under OCGA § 51- 3-1. Tort and contract simply provide alternate vehicles (and remedies) through which [the defendant] could be liable to [the plaintiff] for failing to keep the property in repair.^[10]

Despite the holding in Langley, in the present case, the trial court granted the motions to dismiss, finding that the time-limitation provision in Sneed’s lease agreement barred her claims. Sneed appealed this decision, but this Court dismissed the appeal, explaining that the trial court’s order was not final. Back in the trial court, Sneed filed a motion to vacate the trial court’s order granting the motion to dismiss. The trial court denied the motion, but it entered an order stating that its decision dismissing the claims against the Defendants was final, and there is no just reason to delay the appeal. Sneed now timely appeals from that order.

Based on the holding of Langley, Sneed argues that the trial court erred by dismissing her claims against the Defendants based on the time-limitation provision in the lease. In response, the Defendants contend that Sneed’s claims were properly dismissed because they occurred not in the common areas of the property like the injuries in Langley, but they occurred in her private residence or curtilage thereto; therefore, her claims arose solely from the landlord-tenant contractual relationship and not from statutory or tort law.^[11] Thus, according to the Defendants, the trial court correctly dismissed the claims by applying the contractual time-limitation provision to Sneed’s claims.

1. As an initial matter, the Defendants do not argue, and upon review of the lease we do not find, that there is additional language in this lease that would remove it from the interpretation made by the Langley Court.^[12] The only issue here is whether Sneed’s claims are tort claims independent from the contract claims like those addressed in Langley, or whether they are different and created wholly by the contract because they occurred in the private inside living area or in the curtilage adjacent to the exterior entry to her private living area.

2. OCGA § 51-1-1 defines “[a] tort [as] the unlawful violation of a private legal right other than a mere breach of contract, express or implied. A tort may also be the violation of a public duty if, as a result of the violation, some special damage accrues to the individual.” In Langley, even though a rental contract existed between the parties which governed some portions of their relationship, duties, and claims, there simultaneously existed the relationship of an owner or occupier to an invitee, which was the source of the tort liability identified in that opinion.^[13] In other words, because there was a duty that existed for the defendants other than a duty created by contract, the claims arising from the non-contractual duties were not precluded by that time- limitation provision in the contract.^[14]

Here, we have two injuries. The first injury occurred while Sneed fell using a walkway that led to her personal rental unit.^[15] The second injury occurred inside Sneed’s second apartment when her ceiling fan fell on her head. Although they may or may not have occurred in the common area, it does not follow that the landlord did not owe a duty of care under OCGA § 51-3-1 to Sneed in those spaces. As the Supreme Court observed in Langley, the tort claims alleged are “premises liability claim[s] predicated on [the Defendants’] status as a property owner [or manager]16 and [Sneed]’s status as an invitee on that property.”17 This Court previously explained on rehearing in Total Equity Management Corps v. Demps18 that “[l]andlords may be liable in tort [to tenants] for defective construction or failure to repair, which includes failure to exercise reasonable care to correct a condition that exists in violation of the duties created by the housing codes and other legislation.”19 That case involved claims by tenants against their landlord for personal injuries arising when they entered an apartment other than their own.^[20] This Court explained that the appellees, who were living in one apartment and entered an unoccupied apartment without authorization from the owner “were invitees in their own apartment and in the building’s common areas, [but] once they crossed the threshold of [the unoccupied apartment,] they became licensees.”21 Likewise, Sneed was an invitee in her own apartment and the curtilage adjacent thereto. Therefore, the holding of Langley applies, and the time-limitation provision in the contract did not prohibit all of Sneed’s claims.^[22]

Based on the foregoing, the trial court erred by granting the motion to dismiss to the extent that Sneed’s complaint can be read to have stated any alleged premises liability tort claims for her injuries that occurred as a result of the incident on the walkway and the incident with her apartment ceiling fan. To the extent that any of Sneed’s claims allege simultaneous violations of the Defendants’ duties under the contract, those claims were properly dismissed as time barred. Accordingly, the trial court’s order is affirmed in part and reversed in part.

Judgment affirmed in part and reversed in part. Hodges and Watkins, JJ., concur.