A renter left my rental abandoned . I have all their personal property and a car in storage what do I do now

they have been served a 30 day notice to quit. I have had their personal belongings and a car in my possession for 21 days and they have been notified of storage fees for all ,. what do I do from here
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I live in california any one know of the laws here

You still must do the legal thing to cover your self from a lawsuit. Courts tend to side with a tenant when a Lessor takes action and failed to follow the laws for eviction. 2 wrongs never make a right.

Bite the bullet, hire an attorney and get it done right. You need other than "free" advice from non-attorneys that will leave you with incorrect information, more losses and additional liability. Document well what you have done to date.

depending on where you live it changes

in many states you must hold all of there belongings untill you go to court

then the judge can allow you to sell their belongings or he can make you hold them for 90 days to give them a chance to pay all the monies that are due to you

what ever you do DONT SELL ANYTHING UNTILL YOU SEE THE JUDGE

Contact an attorney! You need legal advice. You may or may not be in violation of the law already!

You generally do NOT have the right to touch their property until you get an eviction order and it has been served.

Are you sure the person did not go missing? I would report it to the police or at the very least contact one of the personal contacts that they left on the rental agreement to find out if anyone has seen them. Then I would contact an attorney just to make sure that you are not in the wrong.

You are the 'guardian' of the personal property.

It could be tricky as you are responsible if something gets damaged etc....

Chat with your Lawyer to see how you should proceed.

Good Luck! (Labour Under Correct Knowledge)

Consult the landlord tenant law for your state. In my state you only have to hold their possessions in a safe area for 30 days and then they are considered forfeited to you. That may be a problem with the car as you could not legally sell it without a title in your name.

you probably need to get someone official to make an inventory of what they have left. Otherwise they could come back and accuse you of stealing valuable possessions.

Usually, when a notice is served for eviction, the sheriff is the one who watches the tenant move his/her belongings out. If they are not present, such as in your case, and you have already had their belongings placed in storage racking up fees, then you should of been informed by the sheriff's dept that after 90 days their belongings will be auctioned off once they are posted in the newspaper(giving the former tenant public notice) and the money applied towards owed rent. Thats what happened at my San Jose apartment complex when a tenant skipped out on rent.

On the car you can call a lien service, which cost about $50.00-$60.00 to place a lien on the car. After 30 days if no one has claimed the car, you will get title to the car. If they claim it before the 30 day period is up they owe you storage fees.

On the personal property check with your apartment association, of which you should be a member of. They normally have the legal requirements for evictions as well as what to do with personal property.

I think after 30 days you can dispose of the property, as at that point it considered abandoned.

I hope this has been of some use to you, good luck

"FIGHT ON"

I don't know how state laws vary. You should call an attorney before you do anything.

Here is some advice: Document the entire situation on paper. Since they were served the 30 day notice have they got in touch with you? Is their mail still being delivered there? Stop the mail person and find out. If possible get their forwarding address. Then you can prove they did abandon your property. Did they have any utilities in their name? Check on that also. Did they have jobs? Check at their work place for them. Did they have kids in school? Check and see if the kids are still in school.

You need to check all these things out. After the 30 days has expired you can get a court date. Again, this all depends on what state you are in. "Usually" if the tenants do not show up for the court date, you win by forfeiture. You cannot get rid of their personal items until after the 30 days has elapsed.

That is why I urge you to talk to an attorney. It's worth it to keep yourself out of trouble. Rentals of any kind are not worth the headache you have with them.

You do not say what state you live in but you will probley have to go to th court and get an order to hold or seize there property for monies owed but it is usually 60 days hold befor you can get rid of it with out a court order

give them notice that you will remove their stuff from storage. Then remove it from strage and place it somewhere else perhapes in a garage when the 30 days are up then you can rightly make a claim on the property you could inform them Police of your doings. they would have to make a payment on the fees of the storage if they wanted all the stuff back.

You need to check your States laws regarding this. Try your Clerk of the Courts Office maybe they can direct you to information you need. Good Luck. Sorry I couldnt be of more help.

Of course Calif. Law is the answer, but I am wondering if you have their deposit, did they leave the place clean?, Can you deduct the costs incurred by you and pay for the storage with the rest to give them a little time? Are you receiving any communication from them, and do you have any idea what their situation is. This is where you want to be a businessman and proceed, but the humanitarian side is to know a little more of what is going on if possible and if they are willing to pay what is needed to give them a little time if they are in an unavoidable ill turn of fate. On the other hand, if the letters do reach them, they do not respond and you are available, then dispose of the property in line with the law. If it were me, I would want to be sure the tenant knew what was happening and had some chance to save what they could.

In new Mexico The tenant is considered to have abandoned the dwelling unit if the tenant is absent from the dwelling, without notice to the owner, for over seven continuous days, if such absence occurs after rent for the unit is delinquent. §47-8-3(A). If the tenant abandons the dwelling unit, the landlord is entitled to take immediate possession of the dwelling unit. §47-8-34(C).
Before disposing of the tenant’s personal property, the landlord must:

1) store all of the tenant’s personal property left on the premises for not less than thirty days;
2) serve the resident with written notice stating the landlord’s intent to dispose of the personal property on a date not less than thirty days from the date of the notice. The notice shall also contain a telephone number and address where the resident can reasonably contact the owner prior to the disposition date in the notice;
3) personally deliver the notice of intent to dispose of personal property to the resident or send it by first class mail, postage prepaid, to the resident’s last known address. If the notice is returned as undeliverable, or if the resident's last known address is the vacated dwelling unit, the landlord must serve at least one notice to such other address as the tenant provided, including the address of the resident's place of employment, or of a family member or emergency contact for which the owner has a record; and
4) provide reasonable access and adequate opportunities for the tenant to retrieve all of the property stored prior to any disposition.

§47-8-34.1(A).

The owner may dispose of the stored property only if the resident does not claim or attempt to retrieve the stored personal property before the date specified in the notice of disposition of the property. §47-8-34.1(A)(6).

The landlord may charge the resident reasonable storage fees for any time that the owner provided storage for the resident's personal property and the prevailing rate of moving fees. The landlord may require payment of storage and moving costs prior to the release of the property. §47-8-34.1(G).

If the rental agreement terminates by the resident’s voluntary surrender of the premises, what may the owner do with any of tenant’s property remaining on the premises?
When the rental agreement terminates by the resident's voluntary surrender of the premises, the owner must store any personal property on the premises for a minimum of fourteen days from the date of surrender of the premises. The owner must provide reasonable access to the resident to regain possession of the personal property stored. If after fourteen days from surrender of the premises, the resident has not retrieved all the stored personal property, the owner may dispose of the stored personal property. §47-8-34.1(B).

How may the landlord dispose of the tenant’s unclaimed property when the tenant has abandoned or voluntarily surrendered the premises?
If the property has a market value of less than one hundred dollars ($100), the landlord has the right to dispose of the property in any manner. §47-8-34.1(D).

If the property has a market value of more than one hundred dollars ($100), the owner may:

1) Sell the personal property, and the proceeds of the sale, if in excess of money due and owing to the owner, shall be mailed to the resident at his last known address along with an itemized statement of the amounts received and amounts allocated to other costs, within fifteen days of the sale; or

2) Keep the property for his own use or the use of others, in which case the owner shall credit the account of the resident for the fair market value of the property against any money due and owing to the owner. In this case, any value in excess of money due and owing shall be mailed to the resident at his last known address along with an itemized statement of the value allocated to the property and the amount allocated to costs within fifteen days of the retention of the property.

§47-8-34.1(D) & (E).

If the last known address is the dwelling unit, the landlord must also mail at least one copy of the accounting and notice of the sums for distribution, to the other address the tenant provided, if any, such as addresses of place of employment, family members, or emergency contact on record with the owner. §47-8-34.1(F).

If the tenant is evicted through a writ of restitution, what may the landlord do with the tenant’s unclaimed property?
The landlord has no obligation to store any personal property left on the premises after three days following execution of a writ of restitution, unless otherwise agreed by the owner and resident. After three days, the landlord may dispose of the personal property in any manner without further notice or liability.

This is NM law however.. make sure you know the laws for your state!!
Good Luck

Send a certified, receipt requested letter containing the 30 day notice to quit. If you don't know the new address, mail to old address. When it is returned as undeliverable or unsigned for, save it for your small claims court action. Different laws for different properties apply. Jurisdiction varies in California. Contact an attorney and get advice from him. Even better, let him handle the posting of the notice of sale, etc.

In California:
You must post a notice of "Belief of Abandonment" and wait the number of days per the instructions for that document. Unless you had previously served a 3 Day Pay or Quit Notice.
You must safely store their property and send out a notice for them to come and claim their property. You send/mail the notices (Certified Mail with Return Receipts is best for proof) to all of the following:
* Last known address (your property)
* All persons listed as references on their application
* to thier place of employment as indicated on their application and/or if you know of their new employment location

Then you wait 15 days for them to claim their property. You must give it to them and not hold it back to demand fees or rent. You can take them to small claims court for anything they owe you in terms of rent, late fees, damages, storage fees. Get a judgement which is good for ten years.
If they do not claim their belongings within 15 days after sending the notice, then you can dispose of it. I'd wait a full 30 just to be extra fair and on the safe side. Keep copies of all documents of notices, receipts for the Certified Mailings and storage fees in their file a long with their rental agreement and application form. You may need this if they tried to take you to small claims (unlikely if you follow the proper steps and are "extra fair").

I strongly recommend that you join your local California Apartment Association and attend their monthly dinner meetings as use their knowlege and professional services for serving notices and hiring them to do evictions. The membership cost is low and will save you thousands!!!! Also, their notice fees and eviction services are very fair and they are very acurate. There are A LOT of Tenant-Landllord laws and its real important to be "by the book" or you could get into legal trouble and loose a ton of $$$.
http://www.caanet.org
As a member you can get all the forms right off of their website and each form comes with detailed, yet easy to understand instructions of how and when to use the form. Also they frequently will have a Lawyer as a guest speaker at the monthly dinner give a talk on "good-to-know" tenant-landlord laws. Also, read their monthly local newsletter which will help you stay informed of new "local" laws like mandatory rental unit inspections by the city and other wierd and questionable laws that the local city will try to slip into the books.

Have you seen the movie Pacific Heights? Rent it! It's not an exageration. There are so many tenants just like that!! But your local chapter of CAA will help you deal with all of them. Good luck!!!

from watching "Judge Judy", I learned that you can't throw it away for a period of time and you must notify them where the belongings are......doesn't sound fair, but I think it is the law. The renter may know the law and thinks he can get a better deal by waiting and then suing you....get some legal advice

send them a letter telling that after 60 days of the time you started storing their belongings [give them the date] that you will dispose of them either by sale or throw away. send this letter to them with return reciept requested, keep a copy of your letter and the proof of delivery. at the date you set, either sale them or throw away. i am not sure what state you are in, so i do not know if you can charge them fees for storage............

Put a lien on there property, then sell it!!!

Sell that stuff on Ebay man

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