Is this criminal? What should I do?
Landlord and myself came to a mutual agreement for us to move out and void the lease. We were in Nevada travelling home at the time. I told them not to go inside our house and that we would start moving out as soon as we got there. We found a Dispossessory notice stuck to our door when we got home. It was already past the date for us to answer. We never recieved the Writ of Possession. My dad died that weekend. My husband went by our place to get a picture of my dad on the day of the funeral. He finds the landlord’s maintence guy boxing up our stuff. So he calls the landlord. She said don’t worry they’ll put it in storage and to go be with our family. Had yet to see a Writ of Possession. A week later when we asked to get our stuff our landlord would not tell us where it was and that we had to pay almost 00 to get it back. They claimed that was their moving fee. They never told us this while they were moving our stuff. We have very expensive computers, furniture with a big screen TV, music equipment, and important documents including military records and my EMT license inside. Also an expensive mattress for a customer we were supposed to deliver in Florida. They have moved it to a different county according to them. They will not let us in to get the documents we need for employment and the mattress. We also have home movies and pictures of my son’s birth and my dad that can never be replaced. This was in March. We have been asking them since then for access and one minute they say okay. The next day they refuse. They did not have any law enforcement there to monitor or do the move. Just them. They’ve threatened to sell our stuff. Total value is between ,000 and ,000. What can we do? We have nothing. Very few clothes also. Our son’s toys are in there too.
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3 Responses to “Is this criminal? What should I do?”
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My suggestion is to prepare an itemized list of all the items taken by the landlord and prepare a civil complaint against him based on the fair value of your appliances, etc. What you do then is send, certified mail a demand letter to him containing the amount you are going to sue him for if your property is not returned. I doubt they will take this to a hearing, but if they do what you do is demand that the following be produced: Proof of service for the summons for the original hearing, Proof of service for the Writ of Possession, the Writ itself. I doubt that they even have such documents, but if they do they were fraudulently obtained, so I suggest that you contact your local district attorney as well and make him/her aware of what you are being put through.
As a matter of law, even pursuant to a writ of possession, the landlord must make you aware of where your property is and how you go about getting it back. Only on refusal to collect the property can the landlord conduct any kind of a Lien Sale, and that hasn’t happened here. I do not believe that moving fees are compensible under these facts, because first the landlord acted illegally by emptying out the house in violation of your agreement and second, if they had done as they agreed there would have been no need for the moving in the first place. As a matter of law a litigant cannot cause an expense by their own action and then claim compensation for it. They will be estopped from so doing.
Your landlord is a bully and a coward, and what he did is TOTALLY ILLEGAL.
You definitely need an attorney!
From what I understand it is illegal for a landlord to hold your possessions. If they are claiming they are holding for back rent or something, that is NOT VALID. They still can’t hold your stuff even if you owe them money. They need to go through the courts like everyone else. I think you can have the sheriff accompany you or else you will have to take them to court.