abandoned unit

dperry · March 17

Good morning,
We are in California. We have a tenant who has not paid rent since last November and has not responded to any of our calls or emails/mail, lien notification, etc. other to say she can't afford to pay. Is there a way to do something about this other than go to auction? Can we consider her lease terminated or abandoned? What form do we need to send her to make sure we are in compliance?
We are trying to take care of this the easiest way possible. We are confident there is nothing of value in the unit as she had mentioned just having her child's toys in there when she rented the unit.
We have not cut the lock or done an inventory as of yet,
This is a new situation for us.
Thank you.

MamaDuke7 · March 17

dperry said:

An article I was just reading says that if the contents are under a $700.00 value then an auction doesn't need to take place. Have you heard of that? This was for California!

No. In my 18 years in storage in CA, all legal training says ANY value gets auctioned. Litigious CA means they could try to come back and say their gold brick was in that trash bag! (A stretch, but you get the idea behind the rule). There is NO amount that we can just trash it, sadly.

MamaDuke7 · March 17

This is the most common case for those that go to auction.

In California, your ONLY recourse is auction. If you have already sent the Notice of Lien, get that lock cut. But unless there is just an empty trash bag, you'll have to auction it.

Use an online source like StorageTreasures.com for the easiest transaction. Make sure you advertise in the newspaper first.

And then it's ready to rent to a new customer!

dperry · March 17

An article I was just reading says that if the contents are under a $700.00 value then an auction doesn't need to take place. Have you heard of that? This was for California!

themage · March 17

The amount varies. Where I am (not California), If we deem the auction value to be less than $300, we don't have to auction it.

Unfortunately, some ex-tenants will (try to) sue, claiming that (not very) old canning jar full of cigarette butts was worth thousands, so it should have gone to auction. Unless it is obviously what any reasonable person would deem trash, it is just easier to auction it and then dispose of it when it doesn't get any bids.

We also have the option of relinquishment in lieu of lien foreclosure (Release and conveyance may be another phrase for it). I don't know if California has that option, but basically a tenant who is behind may, if we agree, offer the contents of their unit voluntarily in exchange for past due rents and fees. It basically shortcuts the auction process and they don't go to collections. We rarely use this option, because the contents aren't usually worth it.

dperry · March 17

I tried that, she won't answer me. We've had NO response from her or the alternate. When she rented for us, she had said the unit was for her child's toys. I guess we will just go take an inventory and go from there.

dperry · March 20

It wasn't making any sense to me. Come to find out, the article was talking about rented apartments or homes rather than storage facilities.

abandoned unit

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