Claiming old tenant's "abandoned" property as new tenant

[RJR]

Do I have any legal obligation to give it back to him? Is it his fault for choosing to leave items behind when he moved out? Is the landlord at fault for not making sure the item was properly "abandoned?"

Ownership does not transfer to a new tenant simply because it was left. "Abandoned" is your term and you have provided no case law/statutory authority to back that up. Two theories, Landlord -Tenant law surely does not assign any left property to a new tenant. Second, it may be the property of the cable business to use by the subscriber. Therefore you risk taking their property, not the tenant's.

It may well be "technically/legally" abandoned, but that is a presumption on our part. If forgotten, I would classify it as "Mislaid" property. Too many variants to conclude you are actually right.

 

[Mass_Shyster]

See MGL Chapter 134, Sections 1 and 4.

Section 1: Report of lost money or goods by finder


Section 1. Any person who finds lost money or goods of the value of three dollars or more, the owner of which is unknown, shall within two days report the finding thereof to the officer in charge at a police station in the town where said property was found, or, if there is no police station, post notice thereof in two public places therein, or, instead of such report or posting, cause notice thereof to be advertised in a newspaper published therein.

Owner has one year to reclaim

 

[justalayman]

See MGL Chapter 134, Sections 1 and 4.



Owner has one year to reclaim

A couple of problems.

Property isn’t lost
The owner is known

The router is treated like any other property owned by or under control of the former tenant.

 

[HRZ]

PS don't throw it in garbage just because you are mad at the answers...law imposes a bit of a duty to safeguard it