Tenant has now moved and handed possession back over to me the owner. She refuses to return the key for she wants to come and get her belongings out. She has now been gone for 40 days. How much longer do I have to hold her belongings, I am ready to clean out the home and put it up for sale. Should I send her notice. I can't allow her back into the home I am changing locks today.
Storing the items the tenant left behind?
She owes you back rent. Go ahead and change the locks, tell her she may have her possessions when she pays the rent for the days she has been gone. I assume you got first and last with the cleaning deposit. Tell her that the cleaning deposit will be used to pay for having her belongings hauled to the dump.
As you are doing all this, file a claim in small claims court for the unpaid rent. Never rent without keeping a set of keys to your property. When your renter abandoned the property and her personal property, she gave up any renter's right she may have had.
Storing the items the tenant left behind?
as long as the tenant has the keys, you do not have possession of the unit. they do. which means charge them rent. its the law.
since she legally claimed to have abandoned it then collect her belonging, put in storage charge her fees for storage and do not release the belongings until she has paid for that plus back rent. CHANGE THE LOCKS IMMEDIATELY! she legally declared she abadoned it so she has no right to enter the property keys or no keys.
You need to look up landlord/tenant rights for your state.
They'll all have similar, but slightly different, rules about how long you must retain her property, how much you can charge her for storing it during that time, etc...
Find the laws and get it right.
If the tenant still has the keys she still has possession of the unit. Rent is still due and payable for the 40 days. Bill her for it and advise her that if she does not pay that you will start formal eviction proceedings. Remind her that rent continues to accrue until she has handed the keys back.
Since she has apparently been out of the property for over 30 days with rent unpaid you may well be able to consider the property as abandoned by the tenant. In that case you probably do not need to proceed with a formal eviction.
You should then send her notice of the fact that you are treating the premises and any personal property as abandoned and that you will dispose of any personal property remaining in the property as you see fit if it is not removed within 10 days. Send it certified mail, return receipt requested. If she hasn't removed her property when the 10 days has elapsed, put it in a commercial storage locker under her name and pay for the first 30 days and send her the address of the facility and the key to the locker. Then change the locks on the house and carry on with your sale.
After all that, I'd bill the tenant for the lock changes plus full rent up until I changed the locks. I'd also follow through with a Small Claims Court case for collection on that if she doesn't pay up.
This is not legal advice. Before proceeding you should seek legal counsel familiar with the laws in your jurisdiction.
Abandonment varies from state to state. In Illinois it is 21 days, then you can remove the items. Check with your state laws. Also for more landlord help check out the site mrlandlord.com. Free formum to ask questions like this.
