Notice of Right to Reclaim Personal Property – To Residential Tenant After Termination of Tenancy
Consider a residential tenant who vacates a rented property and leaves behind personal property. Prior to disposing of the property, the landlord must deliver to the tenant a notice of his right to reclaim his abandoned personal property. [See first tuesday Form 584]
The notice may also be delivered to another party who the landlord believes owns the personal property. [See first tuesday Form 584-1]
Effective January 2013, the notice of right to reclaim abandoned personal property must include information about:
- storage costs; and
- time frames for reclaiming the abandoned property.
Before reclaiming the property, the tenant (or other owner of the personal property) must reimburse the landlord for the cost of storing the property. The tenant or owner of the personal property is not required to pay any storage costs if:
- their personal property remained on the rented premises; and
- they reclaim the personal property within two days of the tenant vacating the premises.
Editor’s note – Few will receive this notice within the two day period after vacating. It will take multiple days to get the notice in the mail and another two to deliver.
In general, the costs of storing the personal property will be lower the sooner the tenant or other owner contacts the landlord and retrieves it.
The former tenant or other owner may minimize the costs of storage by timely retrieving the abandoned personal property by a date not less than two days after the tenant vacated, as specified by the landlord. [See first tuesday Form 584 §6]
Related reading:
Notice of right to reclaim personal property revised
Further, a landlord must include a statement notifying residential tenants of their right to reclaim abandoned personal property in:
- residential notices to vacate [See first tuesday Forms 569, 569-1, 575, 575-1, 576 and 577]; and
- the notice of the tenant’s right to request a joint pre-expiration inspection of the property. [See first tuesday Form 567-1]
Relating reading:
Landlord must notify tenant of right to reclaim personal property
Editor’s note: Current first tuesday students and purchasers of first tuesday Forms-on-CD 4.3 may download a FREE copy of all nine updated forms. Log in to your student homepage at www.firsttuesday.us using your eight-digit Department of Real Estate (DRE) license number or T-number and click, “first tuesday Forms Downloads and Updates.”
