When your tenant splits but leaves junk behind, or you've left in a hurry and forgotten some of your stuff, a Notice of Abandoned Personal Property is the document you need. It's illegal for a landlord to toss a tenant's property without notice. Using this document helps avoid a mess.

Renting a property comes with rules. When a tenant moves out, a Notice of Abandoned Personal Property might come into play. The last thing you want to deal with as a landlord is your former tenants' worldly goods, but you need to give them a chance to get it back before you call in the haulers. You can only offer free storage for so long, and a Notice of Abandoned Personal Property speeds things up and let's you sign on a new renter quickly. As a tenant, you may have forgotten the family memorabilia you tucked out of site in the basement storage space. Or you've spaced on your vintage Stratocaster in the back of a closet. Receiving a formal notice will jog your memory, let you know where to pick it up, and give you a chance to recover it.

Other names for this document: Notice of Abandoned Property