My tenant moved out and left its junk behind. Now what?
Imagine a situation where a burglar breaks into your home and “borrows” some of your possessions without paying for them. On the way out, the burglar drops its wallet on your kitchen floor. Instead of returning the wallet to the burglar, you immediately throw it in the trash. Do you think that you should have to compensate the burglar for failing to notify before throwing the wallet away?
Of course you shouldn’t. But, if you were a landlord and the burglar was your tenant, and you had a lease to allow the tenant to “borrow” your space in exchange for paying rent, the analogy might have a different conclusion. That’s because New Jersey has a Tenant Abandoned Property Act (N.J.S.A 2A:18-72 et al.) (the “Act”), which permits a landlord of commercial or residential property to dispose of any tangible goods, chattels or other personal property left upon a premises by a tenant, but the landlord must reasonably believe under the circumstances that the tenant has left the property upon the premises with no intention of asserting any further claim to the premises or the property and the landlord must put the tenant on notice that the property will be disposed if not timely claimed. An exception is made for perishable items, which the landlord may freely dispose in order to maintain the premises in a sanitary condition.
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