The couch on the curb is not yours yet. When a California tenant moves out and leaves things behind, the Civil Code gives you a procedure for dealing with them, in sections 1980 through 1991. Follow it and the law limits your liability. Skip it and you are on your own if the tenant comes back asking for their grandmother’s dresser.
This post covers a tenant who moved out at the end of a tenancy. Property left after a sheriff’s lockout in an eviction is handled under Code of Civil Procedure § 1174, which borrows parts of this procedure but has its own rules.
First, sort what is there
Walk the unit and separate the property into three piles before you write anything.
- Obvious trash. Food, broken boxes, things no one would want. The statute has no separate category for trash, so photograph it before it goes, and if you are not sure something is worthless, put it on the notice instead.
- Lost property. If you reasonably believe something was lost rather than left, like a wallet or a passport, § 1982 sends it to the police or sheriff under the lost property rules. If they will not take it, it goes back into this procedure.
- Everything else. Furniture, clothes, electronics, boxes of papers. This is what the notice covers.
Two exceptions to know. The chapter does not cover a mobilehome or manufactured home, and it does not cover animals, which follow the Food and Agricultural Code instead. Do not treat a pet left behind as stored property.
Step 1: send the notice
Section 1983 requires written notice to the former tenant and to anyone else you reasonably believe owns the property. If a roommate’s name is on a box, they get a notice too.
The notice has to:
- Describe the property well enough for the owner to recognize it. A locked or taped container can be described as a container, without listing what is inside.
- Say that reasonable storage costs may be charged before the property is returned.
- Say where the property can be claimed.
- Give a date by which it must be claimed: at least 15 days after the notice is personally delivered, or at least 18 days after it is mailed.
Sections 1984 and 1985 contain fill-in forms for the tenant and for other owners. Use them. A notice in substantially that form satisfies the statute, and there is no prize for drafting your own.
How to deliver it. Hand it over, or send it by first-class mail to the person’s last known address. If you mail the former tenant, one copy goes to the unit they vacated. If you have reason to think the mail will not reach them, also send it to any other address you know. If the tenant gave you an email address, you can email the notice as well, on top of the mailed copy.
Describe everything. Under § 1983(b), the liability protection in § 1989 does not cover property you left out of the notice. Photograph each item where you found it and list it. Ten minutes of photos is cheap compared with an argument about a television you forgot to mention.
Step 2: store it
Under § 1986, the property either stays in the unit or goes to a safe place until it is claimed or disposed of. You have to use reasonable care. You are not liable for loss you did not cause by a deliberate or negligent act.
What you can charge for storage, under § 1990:
- If you store it in the unit, the charge is the fair rental value of the space reasonably needed, for as long as it is stored.
- The former tenant can be charged for storing everything left behind. Another owner pays only for the items they claim.
- You cannot charge two people for the same storage.
- If the tenant reclaims property stored in the unit within two days of moving out, there is no storage charge at all.
That two-day rule is why the statutory form has an early date on it. A tenant who comes back quickly gets their things free.
Step 3: release it, or dispose of it
If the owner pays the reasonable storage cost and takes the property by the date in the notice, you release it. Once you release property to the former tenant, you are not liable for it to anyone else.
If nobody claims it in time, § 1988 sets two paths depending on what it is worth.
| Total resale value you reasonably believe it has | What you can do |
|---|---|
| Less than $700 | Keep it for your own use, or dispose of it in any manner |
| $700 or more | Sell it at a public sale by competitive bidding |
The value is for everything not released, taken together, and it is resale value, not what the tenant paid. A roomful of used furniture is often worth less than people expect. Write down how you estimated it.
The notice has to say which path you expect. The § 1984 form gives you two statements to choose from: one for a public sale, and one saying the property is believed to be worth less than $700.
How the public sale works
- Publish notice of the sale in a newspaper of general circulation in the county, once a week for two successive weeks under Government Code § 6066. The last publication must be at least five days before the sale.
- Do not publish too early. The sale notice cannot run before the last claim date in your § 1983 notice.
- Describe the property in the sale notice the same way you did in the claim notice.
- The tenant can still claim it before the sale by paying the storage, advertising, and sale costs incurred so far. You and the tenant can both bid.
- After the sale, deduct the costs of storage, advertising, and sale. Any balance nobody claims goes to the county treasury within 30 days. The former owner has one year to claim it from the county.
The statute lets you deduct storage, advertising, and sale costs from the proceeds. Unpaid rent is not on that list.
When the tenant left without ending the tenancy
Sometimes the tenant simply disappears with rent unpaid. In that case the tenancy may not be over yet, and this chapter only applies after it has terminated. Civil Code § 1951.3 has a separate notice of belief of abandonment, available once rent has been unpaid for at least 14 consecutive days and you reasonably believe the tenant has abandoned the unit. Section 1991 lets you send the property notice at the same time, or combine the two in one document.
Tie it to the move-out
The abandoned property warning is already in the written notice you send offering the pre-move-out inspection, so the tenant should not be surprised. The pre-move-out inspection in California, step by step covers that notice. Belongings are not a deposit deduction category, so keep the property notice separate from the itemized move-out statement.
Condition reports give you dated move-out photos of what was left and where, and tenant messaging keeps a record of every attempt to reach the former tenant.
This is general information, not legal advice. Rules change and local ordinances vary. Confirm current requirements with your city, county, or an attorney before you act.