Abandoned property - please read!

[guestpost]

My boyfriend and I found a "luxury condo" on craigslist. This is in a college town and there are three bedrooms and a basement that is also used as a bedroom in the house. We have three other roommates - we are in a bedroom upstairs. Our contact for this room was a former roommate - pretty much all of our roommates, like ourselves, are new to this condo. He was not occupying our room, and the roommate who was had left and is now living a few hours away. The roommate that was in our room did not even bother to remove his belongings from the room - let alone remove them from the apartment. We have been living there since January 1st of this year, and his possessions have been taking up our living room for the entire duration of our stay. Included are his full size mattress, boxspring, and frame, two end tables, trashbags full of clothes and food, DVD players, comforters, pillows, blow up mattress and pump, two standing lamps, and other random items. We had never made any agreements or arrangements with this roommate as far as picking up these items goes, but recently I got his phone number from the other former roommate and asked him when he was planning on picking up his belongings. He said that he was under the impression that he would be getting his belongings when he received a security deposit from us - a total of one quarter (our portion) of one month's rent. Our contact for this room let us know that he was going to be getting his things from our apartment before we even moved in or at least very shortly after and that we had between 1-2 months to pay our security deposit. What can be done about this? Does he still legally have a right to get his items and demand his money? Shouldn't "his" security deposit cover for storage for the month+ that he's had his things there? Myself, my boyfriend, and our other three roommates have not had the use of our living room for this entire time. Can we dispose of his things? Sell them? Use them as our own? Has he abandoned his property or can he still claim it?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

I can't tell you what to do and what ultimately a court would say. The bottom line is that you need to give this person the ability to pick up their property. If they fail to do so after receiving notice then, effectively, the property could be considered abandoned.

If the ex roommate is saying he expected to get his things when he received his security deposit, then he's mistaken. You took a security deposit for the exact reason you stated - so that he there is a meaningful way to make sure that he leaves the apartment in a reasonably similar condition as it was when he moved in. If he leaves all of his property in the apartment then he's either (a) still living in the apartment and owes rent, or (b) owes all of you money for storing his property, which should be no less than the equivalent of the space it took up in your apartment, e.g. 1/6 of the apartment you charge him 1/6 the rent - that's my thought (and I'm not the judge.)

What I would do is to call him up and get his address. I'd send him a certified letter (in addition to verbal notice - using your cell phone records to show proof of a call is good) notifying him that he has 10 days to pick up his property or it will be considered abandoned and disposed of in a manner you see fit. If he decides to go to court, IMHO, he'll lose. A judge or arbitrator won't stand for his ridiculous excuse that he'd pick up his property AFTER he gets his security deposit.