Previous Tenants' Stuff

Jim_B_3

Piggles12345 wrote: »

Surely, there is no legal proof that they were ever in the property if they are not listed on the inventory.

Can anyone just clarify this for me, please. Many thanks.

I certainly can. There is a great deal of precedent and relevant law dealing with the appropriation of property belonging to someone else, and there have been many cases in which the crime of theft was deemed to have taken place even though the owner had never written a description of the item on a piece of paper before the theft.

Addendum: As an aside, demonstrating to your landlord's agent that you're a thief. Genius.

Geenie

Before you come down too hard on the OP, lets state a few facts I would apply in this situation as a LL.

Firstly, the previous tenant should have taken everything they wanted when they left, especially if they knew there were new tenants moving in. If they wanted storage facilities, then they should have paid to do so.....Pickwicks are good I gather!

If these items were going to be collected at a later date, then it should have been made clear to the new tenants by the LL from the start, and in writing.

I often don't put items on an inventory that were left by previous tenants, because as say in the case of a piano in a recent property, I didn't ask for it to be left there, but the previous tenants couldn't be arsed to clear it out and were more then happy to have it clutter up my property. If the new tenants can make use of it fair enough. If they want to burn it fair enough also.

I wouldn't expect to sell a house and then go back some weeks later after completion and say...."oh by the way, I think I'll have that wardrobe I left in the master bedroom"

No difference to renting. Take what you want when you move out. The OP was given no indication that these items were being taken away.I agree they should give them up for the sake of peace and quiet, but they are not in the wrong here. The LL and previous tenants are.

Jim_B_3

Geenie wrote: »

I agree they should give them up for the sake of peace and quiet, but they are not in the wrong here. The LL and previous tenants are.

To knowingly deprive someone of their property with the intention of unlawfully keeping it is theft. Theft is considered to be wrong.

charliee_3

i have to say i can see both sides, I dont think the OP should consider the items as their own as that is technically theft (although of course if they had not asked for them back noone would have been the wiser and the LL might have been glad not to have them cluttering up the house), if it were me an items had been left but were not on the inventory i would use them if i needed them, but i would most probably not take them with me.
if the prev tenants wanted the stuff they should have made arrnagements sooner to collect them, the LL would have been within his rights to dispose of them to get the house ready for the new tenants if they had not told him they wanted to keep them, so they are lucky they still exist at all...
i think in this case as they have asked for them i would just give them back..its not worth it.. what are the items?

Jim_B_3

A couple of weeks is not long enough for them to be considered abandoned. If the OP had a problem with someone else's property in the house, they had ample opportunity to say so. "Should" is all well and good, but "technically theft" is identical to "theft".

I cannot see the OP's side here. Still, takes all sorts.

Geenie

Jim_B wrote: »

To knowingly deprive someone of their property with the intention of unlawfully keeping it is theft. Theft is considered to be wrong.

The OP didn't know that these items were owned by anyone else when they moved in. They only found out a few weeks later.

And what would have been the case if these items of furniture had been damaged or broken in the mean time?!

They were not on the inventory when the OP took on the tenancy, so they have been looking after them for someone else too lazy to move them out in the first place!

My point is that these items should have been listed as owned by someone else, stored in a seperate area, and not included as part of the general living of the new tenant if wanted. The laziness of some people is unbelievable, and the stupidity of some LL's knows no bounds at times! The LL and previous tenant are at fault. And I am sure the OP will give back what is claimed, they are just rightly making a point about this situation.

charliee_3

Jim_B wrote: »

A couple of weeks is not long enough for them to be considered abandoned.

I dont agree with that, when you finish a tenancy or move out of a house you are supposed to clear it. if you leave stuff behind then it is because you dont want it and you leave it for the next people to deal with (whether they want it or not). if this was a pile of old rubbish then nobody would think twice about picking through anything that may be of use and dumping the rest, you wouldnt be expected to hold onto it.
If they had the slightest idea that they may want to reclaim that stuff even a few days after the tenancy ended, because for whatever reason they couldnt take it at the time, they should have advised the LL that it was there and made arrangements for it to be stored in the house until they were able to collect it. They have no right to assume that the stuff still exists as i am sure it is perfectly acceptable to have taken the whole lot down the dump as soon as they had gone. As it was, the landlord decided to leave it in there, but presumably as he did not own it he did not want it on the inventory so he would not be responsible if it went missing, got broken, etc...

i would not advise the OP to keep it as he does not own it, but if the LL wanted to keep it and add it to the inventory then it is not really theft in my eyes as it was left in his house and they had given up ownership of it when they abandoned it on moving out without making arragements with him for it to be stored for them.

In this situation, for an easy life and as the stuff is still there I would give it back, but i would say it is purely luck that it is still there to give back anyway.

Piggles12345

Hi there,

Thank you all for your comments.

The items are a bin, a couple of clothes horse things, a shoe holder and a cabinet thing. The bin and clothes horse things are in perfectly good condition, but the shoe holder and cabinet are broken.

The reason that I posted was because the letting agent called me yesterday asking whether the previous tenant could drop by today and pick up their bin, which (of course) I agreed to.

What annoyed me was that the previous tenant has used my new home as a free storage area because they didn't move out all of their property when they left a few days before I moved in. Perhaps I would not have minded so much, if their intention to pick up the items at a later date was specified.

I posted my original message to ask what would have happened if I'd have said 'there is no bin'. I'm sorry that so many of you find this simple question so offensive and believe it to prove that I am what is wrong with the UK today .

If the previous tenant called the letting agent today asking for the broken items back, but I had Freecycled them (assuming them to be rubbish given that they were broken), where would I stand?

P.S. Daisychain, if the previous tenant decided to go snooping around and looking through my windows (and I'm the scummy immoral one!) they wouldn't be able to see whether I am using the items that they left at the property as my front window is the kitchen window and none of the items are in there. At the back of the house is a conservatory and the blinds are always kept drawn.

Jim_B_3

Please put aside your ideas of what is reasonable. Acting reasonably does carry weight in court, but there is no denying that the OP knows these items belong to someone else, and that person wishes to collect them.

Claiming that the items are not in the house in an attempt to permanently deprive the owner of them is theft.

Ideally, yes, the owner would not have left them there. The OP would have requested them moved upon moving in. The Landlord would have made arrangements. The landlord's agent would have done something. None of this happened and it's irrelevant.

If the OP was suggesting they might be owed something for having taken care of them, or for the inconvenience, and was not attempting to outright steal the items, that would be different. As it is, the OP is suggesting they lie in order to permanently deprive the owner of the items. Theft.

charliee_3

OMG... a bin.. seriously.. i think i'd have told them to eff off over a bin..
i think a lot of people just had a knee jerk response that you were trying to keep something on the sly... or maybe you really are what is wrong with britain?? lol

unless its a really nice bin that you couldnt possibly replace i'd let them collect it as i said, but dont you dare clean it... call me vindictive, but i'd be not very careful scraping my leftovers into it till they come, get a nice layer of filth on it...??!!