Legal Question in Business Law in Arizona

A customer purchased, and payed for, 4 machines from me 3 months ago and I can't get him to pick them up. I have phoned, emailed and sent letters but they are still here. There was never any agreement that I would store these for any amount of time. These machines are all 5-6 ft long approximately 3 ft wide and take up a considerable amount of space in my 1500 sq. ft. warehouse and effect my day to day operations. How much can I legally charge him for continued storage? Can I charge for past storage? Can I charge him for moving costs to move these to a storage facility, plus the storage fees there?

Can I legally declare them abandoned if he doesn't pick them for a period of time? What kind of notice do I have to give him regarding fee and/or abandonment? Is emails and phone calls sufficient?


Asked on 12/31/09, 10:07 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Donald W. Hudspeth The Law Offices of Donald W. Hudspeth, P.C.

Much of this should be determined by the purchase contract your customer signed. I suspect there is no contract or you would have mentioned it. If not, your answer would be determined by the UCC and case law setting forth the expected custom in business for this kind of situation. We can review the contract, or research the law in this area, depending on what you need, then draft a letter to your customer setting forth your rights. We should also draft a better contract to govern future sales so that this problem is more easily solved in the future.

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Answered on 1/05/10, 10:35 am


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