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

Question

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

I live in california any one know of the laws here

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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"

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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.

Answer 6

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!!!

Answer 7

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.

Answer 8

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.

Answer 9

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.

Answer 10

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.