Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
My friend recently moved out of her old apartment and into a new place 2 blocks away. While moving, she decided to store her bike outside the front yard of the new property, as the lease had not started on hers and the original tenants moved out already.
That was a week ago, today we learned that the bicycles have been "impounded" by the landlord and donated to children. In other words, they took the time to cut through the locks and take every bike on the premise.
Apparently, there had been notices going around to all the current tenants that storing your bike outside would result in it being "impounded" and donated. My friend as a future tenant never received such notice.
A email confirmed the "impounding" and donation and did not offer any compensation except for that she should look on the bright side and see that the bikes were going to needy children.
The lease did say that
23. STORAGE: Lessee shall have no right of storage hereunder and the Lessor shall not be liable for any loss
of property by theft or burglary or otherwise from the apartment of the building, nor for any accidental damage to person or
property in or about the premises. Lessee shall have no rights to use of or access to the roof of the premises and shall not
install any dish, antenna or other items of any kind on the roof. Any items placed in garage or storage areas are stored at
Lessee�s sole risk.
and
Lessee shall have no right of storage under the lease with reference to any area outside the apartment unit premises.
To put this in more context this is a California college town where 95% of people own bicycles, dealing with one of the larger real estate groups in the area, and the lease had been signed already. Small claims court would definitely see a full response from the group.
Do we have any sort of claim to compensation here?
2 Answers from Attorneys
A lease violation is not grounds to play Robin Hood with peoples' property. It is one thing to store things at ones own risk of theft; that does not give the landlord the right to steal property. This was a theft. The civil law action for theft is called "conversion." She is entitled to the value of the bicycle at the time it was appropriated. Since she had no right under the lease to store the bicycle, however, she was guilty of trespass by leaving the bike in a location that was not part of her leasehold. However, if they counter sue for trespass, I can't immagine what damages they can assert. So the bottom line seems to be: is the value of the used bike worth suing her new landlord and starting the landlord/tenant relationship off that way?
I agree with Mr. McCormick. I write separately to point out that the lease provisions that you have cited do not waive a lawsuit against the landlord for intentionally stealing your property. Even if such a waiver were written into your lease agreement, it would violate public policy and be unenforceable.
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