I am beginning the auction process for an auction I scheduled for July 25th. I have a tenant who is extremely past due (it was like this before I began working here) and I have noticed that he does not have a signed lease on file. What are the steps I have to take to be able to auction his items?
Cindy Ashby on Friday 07/07/2017 at 07:19 AM
Good Morning Liz,
It sounds like you may know who this customer is. I suggest two things:
1. proceed with sending him auction notices as if he had a signed lease.
2. contact your attorney. If you do not have one, the NCSSA attorney is Scott Zucker
Lynn Sykes on Friday 07/07/2017 at 08:17 AM
In this situation, if the customer is not able to contact or will not come in to sign a lease, this is our procedure:
We send a lease to the address on file with a letter that states "Here is your lease, please sign and return. The lease becomes effective on
(Once the 30 days expires, you can send the lien letter. I realize this extends the date in which you plan to sell the unit at public auction, but better safe than sorry.)
This procedure was created for us by a self storage attorney.
Doug Pierce on Friday 07/21/2017 at 10:57 AM
Hi Liz,
We do something a little different when it comes to leases not being signed. It sounds as though you have not had contact with this person, or mail is returned, and all numbers are not good. In these cases, if the rental agreement is missing or not signed, our lawyers determined we don't have a legal binding agreement. So, we do not sell the space. We wait 6 months from the date of last contact, and at that point donate the items. We contact Goodwill, or Trosa, etc, and have them pick up what they want. We make sure we get a receipt, so that if the customer ever comes back, we can show the items were donated, not sold, which is a big difference in a court of law, if they try to sue. We did not gain from the discarding of their items. It was our way of removing the items, so we could re-rent the space.
Hope that helps.
Doug
Linda carter on Friday 07/28/2017 at 09:05 AM
I would follow Lynn's suggestions. She would know better than anyone other than Scott.
Kevin Leebrick on Wednesday 07/05/2017 at 03:06 PM
If he is not willing to come in and sign a lease, I would sell it as an abandoned unit.
In these kind of cases, I like to send an email out to "all" tenants saying if anyone is claiming this unit it needs to be done so immediately as it is going to auction. I truly only send it to the person who's belongs it is. I've had this happen a couple times over the years where someone will take a climate controlled unit and not say anything. I then have to send a letter out to folks down that hallway saying if it's your, you better come in otherwise it's going to the auction block. I have always gotten a response.
I hope this helps.