Tenants with no lease

TexasSelfStorage

My company purchased a storage facility recently and we discovered a few tenants with no signed lease on file. Some of them are good tenants and I should  be able to get them to sign a new one. But one tenant that has no lease also has a large unpaid balance and has not responded to any of our attempts to contact him. How should I resolve this? Is it a liability for me to foreclose on a tenant who has no lease?

AnitaJohnson1269

In order to go through the lien process you must have a written agreement, stipulating the terms of default.  If it were me, I would check with the magistrates office, take proof of all your attempts of contact along with the latest invoice (balance). You may have to place an ad in legals in your local newspaper.  You should be able to get a court order releasing you to dispose/auction the unit.  
Contact your TSSA if you are a member, they usually have legal advise there as well.  

Good Luck!

MegumiM

I believe legally as long as they were making payments on the account and it is documented, it is considered a legal agreement. That was my understanding after the last storage conference I attended. I would consult your lawyer and as @AnitaJohnson1269 said you may need to get a court order. I have not had to deal with this before so I am not sure the procedures for auctioning off a tenant with no lease. I would definitely be interested in hearing more on this subject.
@TexasSelfStorage keep us informed on what you discover.

CVSSSTORAGE

When I was an apartment manager we tried to evict a lady and every time we went to court she said oh you didn't file on my mom who wasn't our tenant. Next time we went oh you didn't file on my dad. So after 3 times of having to wait after we refile on her we did her, her parents and Jane and John Does 1-999999 she got like almost two years of free rent but her parents had an eviction on their credit. We figured if she came to court with 9999999 people she deserved to stay lol

teamcapitola

Check with a lawyer!

I've read several cases of tenants with missing leases; the facility sends (cert mail) a copy of a new updated lease, along with a letter asking for the tenant to fill out and return... it also says that after a set number of days, the new lease (and terms) takes effect regardless of it being signed/returned or not.

Again, always check with a lawyer before doing anything, but I'm pretty sure its a rather simple fix.

Orkocean

That's what my biggest company I worked for did with all takeovers. We didn't want to deal with any old worded or missing leases so upon takeover we had every single tenant mailed a new lease as well as rules etc. and a 30 day window to return it. Signed or not it went into effect after 30 days. If we ended up without one signed for auction status we would be extra cautious though and wait 3 full auction cycles before finally letting it be sold to show they made no attempts to rectify their bill.