What should landlord do with tenant's possessions after the tenant leaves?

Attorney Tom Olsen: Caleb, I want to break down the situation if you're a landlord and you've got a tenant that's either voluntarily moved out or they abandoned the property or you went through the court eviction process. Either way, they're now out of your piece of rental property. I want to talk about personal property that they've left behind, okay? You've changed the locks. You're the landlord. You've got possession of the house again. They left a couch or the chairs or a TV or whatever. Let's break it down in simple terms for landlords. What is their obligation with this personal property that's been left behind by the tenant?

Attorney Caleb Maggio: Right, Tom. This is important. I've had my landlords get sued by prior tenants over some personal property that was tossed. To cover all your bases and make sure you're safe, you're going to want to comply with Florida Statute Chapter 715. In there, it deals with the disposal of personal property of a tenant that has left or that tenancy has been terminated. What you have to do is you have to do this notice. It's a written notice. You have to give it to their forwarding address or to the address of the property if you don't have a forwarding address. It needs to state it's pursuant to 715 Florida Statutes. It needs to specifically list all of the personal property that that tenant has left behind. It must give them a time frame of 10 days to come pick it up. You have to make it reasonably available to the tenant to come pick up. It has to either say that the property will be disposed of or any items over $500 individually will be sold at auction. The money will be deposited with the county. The tenant will actually have a year from the date of that to come to the county and pick up that money.

Tom: First of all, does that letter have to be by certified mail or just regular mail?

Caleb: It doesn't. It doesn't have to be certified.

Tom: I'm sure there's some landlords out there saying, "Hey, that happened to me one time. I had no idea where the tenant went to. How am I supposed to know where the tenant's gone to? They hopped in their car and they left." You just answered it for us.

Caleb: Right, yes. Last known address. If you can't find anything, what you do is you send a first class mail, Tom. If there's a forwarding address with the post office, the post office will take care of that for you. If there's not, you did everything you could do and the court's going to understand that.

Tom: Some people may be wondering out there, if you're a landlord, how do you prove that you mailed this to your tenant? I think the court's just going to assume that if you've got a letter dated October 6th that you really mailed it on that day, they're not going to question this, challenge it.

Caleb: That's right, Tom.

Tom: Then we're talking about values and it makes a difference whether the value is under or over $500. That's not for everything. That's for just particular items, whether it's a pair of pants or a chair.

Caleb: That's right, Tom. Individual items.

Tom: By the way, when we're talking about putting values on these things, we're putting garage sale values on these things.

Caleb: The statute specifically says that the landlord reasonably believes is over $500. You're right, Tom. It's what a reasonable person is going to assume.

Tom: If a landlord was giving notice to this tenant that things have been left behind, he could probably make some broad statements like a bunch of clothes or a bunch of pots and pans and dishes.

Caleb: He doesn't have to individually go in there and list every pant, every shirt, and things like that. You can lump certain items together. Just try to be generally specific enough so the tenant knows exactly what's there.

Tom: We're going to assume these pots and pans and clothes are not worth more than $500. As that part of the notice says, "Hey, if you don't come get them within 10 days, I can throw them away or I can keep them or I can give them to Goodwill."

Caleb: Right. Exactly.

Tom: Specifically, this notice is going to list items that might be worth more than $500. Hey, maybe that's a nice 65-inch TV. Maybe it's a PC computer. There, you're going to identify it by specific about what it is. You don't have to put a value on it. You're just saying, I think it's worth more than $500.

Caleb: Right, Tom. That's all you have to do.

Tom: Let's just say that there was a TV that was left behind that the landlord truly feels is worth more than $500. 10 days goes by. Now, what is the landlord going to do with that?

Caleb: You have to auction it off, Tom, so you want to contact the county. You're going to set up an auction. It's going to be sold. The county will take the proceeds of that after paying you and the auction expenses and they'll hold it for a year. The tenant does have a year to come back and get that money. If they didn't pick it up, oftentimes they're not going to come back and get the money. At that point, then the county is going to determine it's theirs.

Tom: If you hired a lawyer to handle this whole auction process for you, would they reimburse? I know they're going to reimburse the court costs and filing fees and publication fees. Are they going to reimburse the lawyer for that too?

Caleb: They should, Tom.

Tom: Just personal experience. Any landlords having to do this type of thing where the tenant has moved out but they've left stuff behind?

Caleb: Do I have personal experience? Oh, yes, I do.

Tom: I find that really fascinating. Again if you want to reach Attorney Caleb Maggio and talk to him about your landlord-tenant situation, he's available here at the Olsen Law Group anytime at 407-423-5561.