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Brother not picking up personal property. What can I legally do with the personal property?

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Rock Chick

New member
Not really sure how to word this so please bear with me and I hope everybody will get the gist of what we are asking advice on. Last year around late summer early early fall my boyfriend's brother and his wife and kids were evicted from the house that they were renting in northern Indiana. My boyfriend's brother and his family had no other place to go other than my boyfriend's brother's wife's parents home. At the time her parents were in between moving from their old home in one part of Michigan to their new home in another part of Michigan. The parents or inlaws were not legally able to move in to their new home until a certain date. This time period between my boyfriend's brother and family getting kicked out of the home they rented and the wife's parents moving into their new home was about 1 to 2 weeks max. My boyfriend's brother asked if my boyfriend would mind storing a few of his and his family's belongings at my boyfriend's apartment for that time. My boyfriend out of the kindness of his heart n because it was his brother and his family said okay for that time. However it is now the latter half of January and my boyfriend's brother has still made no plans to come and get his things and has not retrieved his things from the apartment. We have asked him several times both on the phone and in person to please come and get his things as we are not a storage unit and it is well past the time that they verbally agreed upon the items could be there. So what we would like to know is what can we legally do or are allowed to do in the state of Michigan with these items. Can we just throw them out or donate them or sell them? Or do we send him a letter stating that he has to a certain date to get his items out and if these items are not gone by that date that he gives up all right and ownership to all these items n he cannot legally go after us for these items as they will no longer be his? Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated. PS. The most expensive item that is currently stored at my boyfriend's apartment is a heavily used TV that is 5 to 6 years old and that last i checked on various sites like ebay, amazon, etc is probably only worth about a hundred and fifty to $300 at most.
 


LdiJ

Senior Member
Not really sure how to word this so please bear with me and I hope everybody will get the gist of what we are asking advice on. Last year around late summer early early fall my boyfriend's brother and his wife and kids were evicted from the house that they were renting in northern Indiana. My boyfriend's brother and his family had no other place to go other than my boyfriend's brother's wife's parents home. At the time her parents were in between moving from their old home in one part of Michigan to their new home in another part of Michigan. The parents or inlaws were not legally able to move in to their new home until a certain date. This time period between my boyfriend's brother and family getting kicked out of the home they rented and the wife's parents moving into their new home was about 1 to 2 weeks max. My boyfriend's brother asked if my boyfriend would mind storing a few of his and his family's belongings at my boyfriend's apartment for that time. My boyfriend out of the kindness of his heart n because it was his brother and his family said okay for that time. However it is now the latter half of January and my boyfriend's brother has still made no plans to come and get his things and has not retrieved his things from the apartment. We have asked him several times both on the phone and in person to please come and get his things as we are not a storage unit and it is well past the time that they verbally agreed upon the items could be there. So what we would like to know is what can we legally do or are allowed to do in the state of Michigan with these items. Can we just throw them out or donate them or sell them? Or do we send him a letter stating that he has to a certain date to get his items out and if these items are not gone by that date that he gives up all right and ownership to all these items n he cannot legally go after us for these items as they will no longer be his? Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated. PS. The most expensive item that is currently stored at my boyfriend's apartment is a heavily used TV that is 5 to 6 years old and that last i checked on various sites like ebay, amazon, etc is probably only worth about a hundred and fifty to $300 at most.
At minimum your boyfriend is going to need to give his brother a decent amount of notice to retrieve his belongings or they will be disposed of. 30 days would be best. However, its going to cause a rift with his brother and perhaps the rest of his family if he does so, so I hope that he is the only who is really annoyed by the items being there, and not you. You really shouldn't have an opinion about it.
 

Rock Chick

New member
I am posting on my boyfriends behalf. He wanted to know what he can do so i told him id look stuff up if he wanted me to. He wants his brothers stuff gone too and so does his roommate. The rest of the family hardly talks to my bfs brother because of how my bfs brother is n how he treats everyone. But thats a long story for another day. Like said in original post he wants to know if writing a letter n giving 30 days is right thing to do or what should he do to get the stuff put of apartment. My bf has already given his brother enough time to get his stuff n asked several times for him to make plans n pick stuff up. Thanks for reply.
 

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