Lien question, sale or dispose?

AKKathie said:

I would think there is something about the money generated from the sale paying off a portion of the amount due - it is after all their stuff they could have sold if they could have gotten to it.  Better tip toe on that one and check with legal.
With us, it goes to the dump.  All of it.  No impropriety of an employee taking something or us donating and taking the write off.

Thank you AKKathie, I appreciate the help.  We were trying to avoid having auctions or using a collection agency by offering quit and releases, after some research, looks like we'll be going ahead with auctions.  I've done plenty of auctions when I worked for corporate storage, so I am very familiar with the process.  This being a family owned storage, we were just trying to weigh our options to avoid that whole avenue, unfortunately some things can't be avoided lol....  

AKKathie said:

@GM_SJ_BSS look into Storagetreasures.com.  We no longer do on-site auctions.  Too much trouble.  Now it is sooo much easier.

Yeah I've used StorageTreasures for over 6 yrs when I worked for a corporate storage company.  I did tell the family I work for now about the online auctions as its usually cheaper than live auctions on the property with an auctioneer.  Not to mention out of the 6 yrs I did online auctions, there was only 2 times that we made more than owed on the account, usually took a loss and sent them to collections.  We just opened March 1st 2020, the 1st lock we cut last week, unit was completely empty, tenant would just not respond to us, not sure how hard it is to reply to phone calls, emails, txt and just tell us they vacated, the account went up to $600 owed.  Owners did not send to collections, wrote off as bad debt.... Im guessing as we gain more tenants, they may change their mind about sending to collections, as of now we have plenty of units available so that one unit wasn't holding us up.  I too prefer the online auctions, definitely easier......

Thanks Shelley.......I've actually done liens and auctions when I worked for corporate storage for many years.    The managers were actually the auctioneers for first few years, then corporate tried a live auctioneer, did not go well.  So we began online auctions, so I'm familiar with the procedure was just unsure if a family owned storage company that doesn't want to deal with collections had the right when a tenant is in default by law, if they could just dispose of belongings instead of selling, again seeing how they at this point will not be using a collection agency.  I was informed they must attempt to sell at least once, it doesn't get any bids, they than have the right to mark contents as having zero balance and can dispose of at that point.