Tenant left taking most stuff and no contact

[stannan]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Virginia, Prince William County
Hello,
A family friend needed a place for her adult son to stay and we offered up a spare room to rent to him. The original agreement was to be 500 a month but we agreed to a weekly payment of 125 instead because he said it would be easier for him to do. Everything was done on a verbal basis and no contracts or lease was made out and signed. After 3 weeks of him paying a few dollars here and there a week we finally told him he needed to stick to the agreement of 125 up front every week. The very next day we caught him going through things he had no right to get into and he got mad and an argument ensued with me telling him if we ever caught him again doing stuff like that or taking things without asking he would need to leave. On the coming monday he left 80 of the 125 rent on the kitchen table and left, leaving a room full of his bed linens and a few cloths and some small electronics. Attempts at contacting him have yielded only 1 text reply stating that he was in Atlantic City. He has now been gone 27 days as of today with no contact and no returning of our calls. We even reached out to his mother who originally asked us to let him stay and she has said nothing other than she was shocked over his behavior. Our question is this: how long do we have to wait to consider him to have abandoned the room and his stuff since his mother wont take his stuff and we have had no contact from him in just about 1 month. I tried looking up tenant/landlord laws in VA but couldn't find anything on abandonment and to be honest the more I looked and read the stuff the more confused I got. This has turned out to be a big mistake in trying to be helpful and believe me I will never rent a room again like this if at all. Thank you in advance for any help with what we should do or where to turn to.

 

[stannan]

A bit more clarification. He still has a key and as far as his clothes go he emptied the dresser except for several socks and underwear and left some jackets and shirts in the closet. We would like to change the locks and clean out the room just don't know how long we have to wait until doing so.

 

[LdiJ]

A bit more clarification. He still has a key and as far as his clothes go he emptied the dresser except for several socks and underwear and left some jackets and shirts in the closet. We would like to change the locks and clean out the room just don't know how long we have to wait until doing so.

I would change the locks now...for safety purposes. You can box up his stuff and store it somewhere rather than discarding it, on the off chance that he actually returns for it.

 

[FarmerJ]

Before you pack any thing up, go in and take pics and a lot of them, including pics that show the dresser drawers open and empty and take enough pics to show the things he did leave behind so you can try to show that the room appeared abandoned since the majority of his clothing and other things were taken out by him and take notes like if he left 3 socks and two bed sheets and 3 wash clothes and one bath towel then note it on paper so you have a sort of inventory then pack it all up and store it in a safe place and send to him via certified mail to his last known address ( the one he rented from you ) a short letter with date saying if he does not make arrangements to pick up his things from you in the next ( 30 ??? days ) that they will be treated as abandoned property and disposed of. If you send it via certified mail and he has not put in a change of address card the post office will leave notices at your home for him telling him he has mail to come and get (save those) and in the end return to you as non deliverable your orig letter to him , leave it sealed and save it incase you are ever taken to court by him for the things he left behind.

 

[quincy]

A bit more clarification. He still has a key and as far as his clothes go he emptied the dresser except for several socks and underwear and left some jackets and shirts in the closet. We would like to change the locks and clean out the room just don't know how long we have to wait until doing so.

Here is a link to Virginia Code, Section 55-248.38C1, Disposal of property abandoned by tenants: https://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+55-248.38C1

You need to provide this fellow with notice.

 

[LdiJ]

Before you pack any thing up, go in and take pics and a lot of them, including pics that show the dresser drawers open and empty and take enough pics to show the things he did leave behind so you can try to show that the room appeared abandoned since the majority of his clothing and other things were taken out by him and take notes like if he left 3 socks and two bed sheets and 3 wash clothes and one bath towel then note it on paper so you have a sort of inventory then pack it all up and store it in a safe place and send to him via certified mail to his last known address ( the one he rented from you ) a short letter with date saying if he does not make arrangements to pick up his things from you in the next ( 30 ??? days ) that they will be treated as abandoned property and disposed of. If you send it via certified mail and he has not put in a change of address card the post office will leave notices at your home for him telling him he has mail to come and get (save those) and in the end return to you as non deliverable your orig letter to him , leave it sealed and save it incase you are ever taken to court by him for the things he left behind.

It doesn't sound like much stuff to me. I wouldn't discard it at all...or at least not for a very long time.

 

[stannan]

Here is a link to Virginia Code, Section 55-248.38C1, Disposal of property abandoned by tenants: https://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+55-248.38C1

You need to provide this fellow with notice.

Thank you for the link. We do have one problem. He has no address we know of in Atlantic City or if he is even still there since he wont take our calls and doesn't return our messages. We are going to try his mother one more time but if she is of no help would sending a notice to our address in his name like the other poster suggested allowable? I am still looking through the link and going backwards from the page to the beginning so hopefully I will find answers I need. Your link was a great help. Gave me a place to start a more detailed search. Thanks again.

 

[FarmerJ]

If you use the only known to you address to send the notice out to and he has not put in a forwarding address later on if he decided to sue you for his things do you think a court would excuse his failure to put in a address forwarding card ? I don't think they would excuse it. Same logic when a landlord is planning on returning a deposit , so the LL fixes up the letter, they send it to the only address that they have for the tenant , because the tenant has not given them a new address so they send it to the one that came with the unit the tenant rented from them. but its returned to them because the tenant has not submitted a forwarding address , so tenant takes the LL to court and the court discovers the tenant did not put in a forward card nor did they do anything to attempt to collect mail (notices from post office ) that may have sent to them at old address and the court can see that the Landlord did follow the deposit disposition law and sent it to the only address they had ( as the court sees the LLs returned sealed in orig envelope letter, then its likely the court would deny the tenants claim and give them the mail that they did not file a forward card for (delivering it to them right there in the court room) so the same thing can be said about your notice to the tenant telling the tenant that you will be treating those things as abandoned property , the court would rely on your paper trail in a decision should it decline the tenants claim.

 

[stannan]

Thank you everyone for the advice and links. It has helped greatly in figuring out how to go about this situation.