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  • 1.  RIghts of Tenant on Abandonment

    Posted 07-01-2022 01:29 PM
    Hello,

    I'm looking for insight on what rights a tenant has when a notice of abandonment has been issued. The tenant is 2 months past due. Notice of claim was issued. She's been in contact with us but has only provided excuse after excuse for payment, and I'm tired of waiting and losing more money. She herself explained that the items inside her unit are of no value to anyone else, so we issued a notice of abandonment in leiu of losing more money on a foreclosure. She said we are legaly required to give her things like social security cards and tax returns that are inside the unit. Anyone know the validity of that? I' ve never heard of that, and my understanding is that nonpayment forfeits any rights to the unit's contents.

    Thanks in advance!!

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    Hannah Ribera
    LD Storage, LLC
    Denton TX
    (940) 326-4428
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  • 2.  RE: RIghts of Tenant on Abandonment

    Posted 07-02-2022 07:22 PM
    Edited by Doug Hunt 07-05-2022 11:40 AM
    My experience based on thousands of auctions over the years .

    We generally ask anyone finding personal items of the nature mentioned ( also included would be ashes in urns) found in a unit that goes to auction to drop them off at the office so the owner can retrieve them. Just a little curtesy for the tenant. But it is not required by law. When the gavel falls they are buying 100% of the contents .

    All that being said we hold these personal items for maybe 90 days . I don’t think even 1 in 50 tenants comes to retrieve the items .

    Let’s face it. If what is stored had so much value to the tenant they would have paid the bill. And who stores a birth certificate in a storage unit? I have heard that a 1000 times and have not seen one yet.

    Sent from my IPhone
    Douglas W. Hunt
    214-236-7474




  • 3.  RE: RIghts of Tenant on Abandonment

    Posted 07-04-2022 02:23 PM
    During a foreclosure you can ask the winners of the auction to return personal items or you can pull them out before the sale. Page 49 of the Goldbook advises that you try to return them to the tenant and if they don't pick them up within 4 years you can dispose of them. All but one of ours has come by to pick theirs up within a couple of weeks of the sale. In this case, if you have a signed lease I would recommend going forward with the foreclosure instead of abandonment. In my opinion we would rather someone pay us $10 (at a minimum) to clean out the unit instead of us having to do it. On the other hand, if you still have contact with the tenant, it might be worth it to just strike a deal with them to pay a partial amount or even just come clean the unit out with no payment so you can rent it sooner and start collecting rent from a better tenant.

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    Terri Wood
    Executive Assistant
    Ideal Self Storage
    Waco TX
    (254) 301-4071
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