Cut and Inventory

Faye

We have several tenants that do not pay unless we place a lien. Most have not had access to the contents of their unit for years. Is it legal to make a copy of the last physical cut & Inventory on file and sign with the new date?

karen700

On our property, in order for customer to payoff they have to be in person with new lock in hand (or purchase one of ours). Our lock comes off, their lock goes on and customer has access to their unit again. If customer is out of state, we replace lien lock with lock they purchase from us and certify the keys to the correct mailing address. We don't leave our lock on unit as this runs into the possibility of legal issues if customer comes in and says things are missing from their unit. We also do this with people who won't come in and put their lock on their unit correctly. We explain to them they are responsible to keep their unit locked...not us. In response to your question....I would do it all over again...every time...and work on getting them to put their own lock on their unit ASAP. Paper trail and pictures, with time/date stamp on them, go a long way to covering you as you go thru this lien process. Hope this helps!

i43storage

Most often, after we tell the tenant we are going to charge them to cut off their lock, they pay.  If they don't pay then, a lot of them pay after we tell them we are going to charge them to go to auction.  We are only required by statute to give a "brief and general description" of the items.  We have many tenants who go through the entire cycle - pay all the fees - and never go to auction; however, we always start from the beginning and do everything by the book each time we go to lien.

karen700

I would say no....it may be a hassle, but doing it by the book every time is the way to go!!!!...who's to say that the customer didn't piggy back behind another car onto property one night and put something majorly expensive in their unit? You won't know as they didn't put their code in gate....I have several customers that pay off when lien time comes and never a ghost of a sighting in between. If you have to cut off the lock anyway, you might as well "do the do" as you are already there!

Faye

All units that are late on rent have our over lock on it and because they have not had access they have not replaced their lock so ours is the only lock on it. I personally think it is a good idea to Inventory every time but I'm looking for input and opinions on how other facilities handle a situation like this. What about not even making a copy but just signing below and dating on the last physical inventory?

Robyn

In Oregon we are no longer required to make a "list" of items we view during our lock cut on the lien sale notice.  This allows us to not technically have to cut off the lock until closing the day before the auction.  

teamcapitola

When "we" (we use a bonded auction company for the cuts/inventory) perform the cut lock/inventory, the unit is sealed with a numeric tamper proof plastic tag which is recorded on the inventory sheet. Provided that the seal is intact, the unit can go into a future auction.

We had a unit go into lien, through the cut lock process and scheduled for an auction. The tenant came and paid, but never accessed the unit. He went right back into Lien, and was eventually auctioned. The original seal was never compromised, so it didn't require another inventory.

CVSSSTORAGE

we are required to have them go into the storage unit and sign the sheet left by the auction company and place a new lock on it. If they do not have a new lock we charge their account for a lock. 

Orkocean

All of our "Fees" for the auction are bundled into one lien fee of $110, that's a pretty good deterrent to get people to pay before the EOM so they avoid the big hit as well as 2 months of rent then due so we get very few people who go to auction. Those repeat offenders when they do happen if they have never had the seal tag removed from their unit from the previous time it has been inventoried we use the original inventory sheet. as the seal tag # would still match what's on that form.

Faye

Orkocean said:

All of our "Fees" for the auction are bundled into one lien fee of $110, that's a pretty good deterrent to get people to pay before the EOM so they avoid the big hit as well as 2 months of rent then due so we get very few people who go to auction. Those repeat offenders when they do happen if they have never had the seal tag removed from their unit from the previous time it has been inventoried we use the original inventory sheet. as the seal tag # would still match what's on that form.

We charge very little for the whole process. Lien notice is $10.00, C&I&P $20.00 and if the unit actually goes to auction $25.00.

Even though I'm the manager I have to get permission. I finally just talked the owners into $25.00 Lien, $25.00 C&I&P & $25.00 Auction fees. I'm in Michigan, does anyone know if there are any caps on any of these fees in Michigan?

websterb

Our facility denies tenant gate access on the 3rd day late past their due date, charge a $20.00 late fee on the 5th day, and a $100.00 lien fee on the 31st day late, and they are in  "Auction Status" on the 46th day late. One problem is our habitual's know we remove the lien fee if they bring it current before unit is actually scheduled, so you have some that go to the very last moment to bring payment current. Once unit is scheduled for Auction, all fees apply. We only remove a portion of the sale fee if tenant want to bring his unit current.

i43storage

Faye said:

We charge very little for the whole process. Lien notice is $10.00, C&I&P $20.00 and if the unit actually goes to auction $25.00.

Even though I'm the manager I have to get permission. I finally just talked the owners into $25.00 Lien, $25.00 C&I&P & $25.00 Auction fees. I'm in Michigan, does anyone know if there are any caps on any of these fees in Michigan?

I would check with your state statutes.  We have caps on certain fees in Wisconsin.