Trespassing: Can you auction a customer's personal belongings when they trespassed on your property and stored their goods without paying or signing a lease?
We have a customer who moved into a vacant unit without asking, signing a lease, or making a payment. We don't know how the customer got inside the gate, but we believe they received the code through a friend. (We also have not upgraded our gate system yet, so we do not have unique codes for each customer.) This customer received the unit number through a reservation she made with our call center. After contacting the customer about completing her move-in, she said she would sign the lease and complete a move-in on a specific date. Fast forward to now and several follow-ups later, we have overlocked her unit due to nonpayment and refusal to sign the lease. She is essentially trespassing, and it has been 90 days. Can we auction her unit after following the appropriate auction protocol? Thank you in advance for any help you can provide!
Liberty Gate Investments, LLC on Thursday 08/02/2018 at 09:29 PM
Thank you, Kevin! I appreciate the good feedback.
Kevin Leebrick on Tuesday 07/31/2018 at 10:07 AM
If there is no lease and no payment made I would say you can proceed to dispose. Out of an abundance of caution if you believe you know the tenant I would begin the auction process immediately creating a paper trail on your end.