What Do You Do When Someone Dies And Leaves Behind Stuff In A Storage Unit?
The odds are really good that you know someone who has stuff in storage. As of 2015, almost 10% of U.S. households rent a storage unit, and a lot of them use it to store things that they don't have a use for right now but want to keep in order to pass it on to someone else or maybe sell it someday. What happens, then, when someone dies and leaves behind a storage unit? Here are a few different possibilities and how to handle them.
You have the key and permission to use it.
Hopefully, if your relative or friend put you in charge of their estate, they also left you with the key to the storage unit and already listed your name as someone who has permission to get into it.
If so, you can take the key to the storage facility and clear it out. That way those items can be added to the deceased's estate. Just make certain that you let the facility know that your friend or relative has died, and take the necessary steps to close out the account—otherwise, they'll continue to bill the deceased's estate for the empty unit until the contract runs out. That bill will have to be paid before the deceased's estate is settled.
You have the key but not permission to use it.
You may have the key but, if you aren't the executor of the estate, you don't have the right to use it to clear out the items. If your friend or relative didn't leave a will, but you think that there's a strong likelihood that you'll end up executor of his or her estate, you can do the following to make sure that the items inside the unit don't get sold for nonpayment:
- Take a copy of the death certificate to the storage unit's office.
- Find out how the bill for the unit was being paid. Is it still prepaid for a number of months or does it need to be paid monthly?
- Make arrangements to pay for the unit if it needs to be paid while you are getting through the process of being named the executor of the estate. Then you can legally remove the items and close out the account.
- Submit the bill for any month you paid for the unit out of your own funds to the attorney handling the estate. You will eventually be reimbursed out of the estate.
You don't even know where the key is located.
Check through the deceased's canceled checks, monthly bills, and credit card statements until you find the name of the storage unit. Get a copy of the death certificate and then follow the appropriate steps, depending on whether or not you have the proof that you are the executor of the estate. Once you are the executor, you can get management to open the lock for you and you can remove the items as you see fit.
Do not attempt to bust a lock off a storage unit yourself. Most units have security cameras and doing so—even if you know that you'll eventually have a right to take the stuff inside anyhow—still constitutes a breaking and entering charge. If you take anything, you could be charged with theft.
The managers of storage units would much rather see your family heirlooms and items that were personal go to the estate of the deceased, not end up sold to pay the past-due rental fees. They're more than willing to work with you if you take the appropriate steps to gain legal access to the unit. For more information on this process, contact a facility like Penn Plaza Self Storage.