When a Tenant Leaves Property Behind
As a landlord, what do you do if your tenant leaves a stereo in his apartment after moving out? As a tenant, how do you get back the prized photo album you left behind in the duplex you leased?
Not to worry. California law has established a procedure for landlords and tenants that is meant to help return all personal property to its rightful owner and make sure that the costs of removal and storage are properly paid.
Notifying Tenants
For about 15 years, the California Civil Code has imposed on landlords the legal burden of notifying former tenants about any personal property that was left behind. If the property is worth less than $300, the landlord may eventually be able to destroy it, keep it, or even sell it. If it is worth more than $300, the landlord must sell it at a public auction, after first publishing a legal notice in a newspaper.
In either case, the landlord must first provide the former tenant with written notice that the property has been found. The law even requires the landlord to notify anyone else whom he reasonably believes to be the owner of the property.
In other words, if a tenant’s friend left a camera in the vacated apartment and the landlord knows who that friend is, that person must be notified. The form of the notice is set forth in Section 1984 of the California Civil Code.
After receiving the notice, the tenant has 18 days within which to claim the property. (It’s 15 days if the notice was delivered personally.) Then the landlord must “surrender” the property, after the tenant pays reasonable storage costs, including any out-of-pocket costs. (Surrender is a legal term. I know it sounds like something out of a Grade B cowboy movie, but all it means is that the landlord hands over the property, or if it’s too heavy to lift, lets the tenant arrange for its pickup.)
Don’t fight about the amount of storage fees. Attorneys David Brown and Ralph Warner warn landlords in their book “The Landlord’s Law Book” that it’s not worth the headache.
“It’s just not worth it to get into fights over $75 worth of used books, records and tennis sneakers,” they write. “If you insist on too high a storage charge and the tenant refuses to pay it, you will end up having to keep or sell the property. This may result in a tenant suing you and raises the possibility a judge may hold you liable for the entire value of the property because your storage charge wasn’t reasonable in the first place.”
That same advice--don’t fight--goes for tenants too.
New Code Provision
This year, a new code provision goes into effect. This requires landlords to return abandoned property upon the request of a former tenant. So even before the landlord’s notice is mailed, or if a landlord neglects to send such a notice, a tenant has 18 days after vacating the premises to request in writing the return of his forgotten property. Within 5 days, the landlord must provide the tenant with a written request for payment of costs, including an itemization of all charges.
Upon payment of the costs, the landlord has 72 hours to surrender the property. If two people claim ownership of the same property--say the apartment was shared by roommates--the landlord has to return the property to the first person who requests it and is not liable to the other person.
Of course, you can avoid all these complicated legal rules and deadlines if you (both tenants and landlords) take a very careful look around the apartment before departing for good.
Attorney Jeffrey S. Klein, The Times’ senior staff counsel, cannot answer mail personally but will respond in this column to questions of general interest about the law. Do not telephone. Write to Jeffrey S. Klein, Legal View, The Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.
