June 2003 Owners Update

WHEN A TENANT'S PERSONAL PROPERTY HAS BEEN LEFT IN THE RENTAL UNIT

When tenants move out of a rental unit, they are required to also move
their personal property. (Personal property is everything which a person
can own except for land. Personal property is also referred to as personal
possessions or personal belongings.) There are three different procedures
which a landlord may follow to remove and dispose of personal property left
in a rental unit after a tenant has vacated. A landlord who has properly
followed one of the procedures cannot be held liable for any damages
related to the property. The three procedures apply to the following three
situations:

The tenant has requested that the property be returned.
It appears that the property has been abandoned.
It appears that the property has been lost. (The owner is unknown.)

Which procedure a landlord should follow in any particular case depends
upon the situation.

Some General Guidelines For All Situations

Store Property Safely
When a tenant has left personal property in a rental unit, the landlord
should safely store the property. A landlord may choose to leave the
property in the rental unit. But if the unit may be rented soon, the
landlord should store the property elsewhere. Wherever the landlord chooses
to store the property, it must be kept in a safe place, where the property
will not be damaged or stolen. In storing the property, the landlord must
use reasonable care to keep it safe. If property is lost or damaged, and if
the landlord did not act in a deliberate or negligent manner in storing and
caring for the property, the landlord will not be liable for any storage
related loss.

Act Reasonably
In deciding whether or not a particular case fits into the lost property
situation or the abandoned property situation, a landlord is held by the
law to a certain standard. And in deciding who the property owners are or
might be, the landlord is held to that same standard. The standard is: A
landlord must act reasonably, and the landlord's actions must be based on a
reasonable belief.

The law defines a "reasonable belief" as the actual knowledge or belief
that a prudent person would have, given the facts then known by that
person. Generally a landlord is not required to conduct an investigation to
obtain more facts. But, if a landlord has information which indicates that
an investigation would provide more facts about the identity of the
property owner, and if the cost of the investigation would be reasonable in
view of the probable value of the property, then the landlord should make
the investigation. If an investigation should have been made but wasn't,
then the landlord is held to a higher standard - the reasonableness of the
landlord's actions would be judged as if the landlord had conducted an
investigation and had known the facts which the investigation would have
revealed.

What all this means is that in deciding whether the property left behind is
abandoned or lost, the landlord must keep in mind all of the facts that the
landlord knows or ought to know about the situation. And in deciding who
the property owner or owners might be, the landlord also must keep in mind
all of the facts that the landlord knows or ought to know. For example, if
the landlord knows that a telephone call or two, or a search of public
records, would give the landlord more information about who the property
owner is, and if the value of the property is significantly more than the
cost of the phone calls and public records search, the landlord should make
the calls and do the search.

Avoid Unlawful Self-Help
When a landlord disposes of personal property by properly following one of
the three legal procedures, the landlord can avoid the possibility of being
held liable for unlawfully taking or converting the property. If a landlord
goes about disposing of the property in some other way, resorting to
self-help methods, the landlord could be liable for money damages.

Please Remember
The steps outlined in this legal guide are only for situations where
personal property has been left in a rental unit which has been vacated by
the tenant. If the tenant has not vacated the unit, a landlord has no legal
right to dispose of personal property in the unit. If a landlord believes
that a unit has been abandoned by the tenant, the landlord must follow
certain legal steps to declare the rental unit abandoned. Only after the
rental unit is legally considered abandoned can the landlord dispose of
personal belongings left in it on that basis.

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