End of tenancy cleaner took my posessions

AdrianC

lincroft1710 wrote: »

Theft or carrying out instructions to remove "abandoned" property? We will never know

It certainly wasn't theft.
Theft is defined, legally, as the intent to permanently deprive the rightful owner of an item.
There is no intent here - because, in the context, it was eminently reasonable to assume the item was abandoned, and as soon as the other person was made aware that the item was not abandoned, they returned it.

The OP should be thankful they've got their property back, not throwing accusations around. It was their own negligence, nothing else, that meant it was at risk of damage or being lost in the first place.

agrinnall

googler wrote: »

OK, I'll rephrase that. They didn't pro-actively return them. They had to be actively chased by their boss to hand them over.

If they hadn't been chased by their boss they would have kept them.

Yes, because they had been left behind and the cleaner may have reasonably thought that the tenant, who by then should have removed all possessions from the property, didn't want them so thought they might as well give them a home. When informed that they had been accidentally left they happily gave them up. I think you are seeing criminality where none exists.

lewishardwick

Was the company contracted to provide and 'end of tenancy clean'?

If they stipulate the removal of all possessions, then you do that.

If something was left behind and they have 'disposed' of it, they can do whatever they like with it. No one knows what the cleaners intentions were.

Without being disrespectful to cleaners, many are on NLW and English is not their first language, your treasured model train may seem no more than a toy to them.

By all means check your contact but don't hold your breath. If you're lucky they may have a policy that refunds got any deductions hopee landlord makes from your deposit for cleaning.

Good luck.

rosyw

lewishardwick wrote: »

Was the company contracted to provide and 'end of tenancy clean'?

If they stipulate the removal of all possessions, then you do that.

If something was left behind and they have 'disposed' of it, they can do whatever they like with it. No one knows what the cleaners intentions were.

While it's not quite the same, my daughter is a cleaning supervisor at a large holiday park where the visitors stay in lodges, they are told when they leave to check they have everything with them as the cleaners will remove anything that doesn't belong with the lodge. The cleaners are told that if someone has left something obviously valuable it should be handed in at the office, anything else left behind they are free to take if they want it, so unopened food items, bottles of wine etc. end up going home with the cleaners as perks of the job. A "toy" wouldn't be obviously valuable to most, so I imagine would have been considered a "perk".

mchale

92203 wrote: »

The company stipulated that all of my posessions and goods should be moved out prior to the cleaning taking place.

But you didn't do this: end off, move on

dekaspace

AdrianC wrote: »

It certainly wasn't theft.
Theft is defined, legally, as the intent to permanently deprive the rightful owner of an item.
There is no intent here - because, in the context, it was eminently reasonable to assume the item was abandoned, and as soon as the other person was made aware that the item was not abandoned, they returned it.

The OP should be thankful they've got their property back, not throwing accusations around. It was their own negligence, nothing else, that meant it was at risk of damage or being lost in the first place.

Actually there is a law about taking stuff from peoples bins as it is still their property, even heard of arrests for people taking things from skips many times over the years.

But my interpretation is that the cleaners were hired to clean the property, which would mean disposal of items left there, NOT taking what they want which is different.

chucknorris

elsien wrote: »

When you say it's clearly of high value, maybe that's the case if you are familiar with the items, but not otherwise. Hence the not handing it in or treating it carefully.

Exactly, a friend of mine's brother used to be a bin man, he once luckily happened to notice a Hornby train set (in its box) thrown out with the rubbish.