Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Relatives Abandoned Property

I am going to take a non-scientific, non-educated guess. I think it depends upon whether your lease from your parents expressly, or more likely by tacit implication, excepted and reserved the space occupied by the hutch from your lease.

Your parents seem to be "in the loop," but perhaps unwilling at this point to take sides. At any rate, you say you've talked to your parents about this problem several times. You don't, however, state whether they take the position that your lease gives you 100% of the property or if you were supposed, by the lease, to accept the presence of your sister's long-term storage.

In any event, in court the first legal issue would be whether the space occupied by your sister's property was leased to you or held back by express provision or impliedly based on intra-family understanding. I'd say more likely than not you win on this point, but not by a huge margin. Courts have a propensity to believe that deals within a family are, or should be, designed or intended to foster strong intra-family relations.

If it turns out, as it may, that your sister's property is there as a result of a deposit or bailment that you initially agreed to, but that you have a right to the space and she has no right to it, you can terminate your duties as a depositary by giving reasonable notice to come and get it, as you seem to have done. Whether "by next Tuesday" is sufficient notice depends upon when it was given and a host of other factors, such as where she lives.

Upon termination of your duties as a depositary, if that's what you are, you don't necessarily have the right to throw the hutch in the dumpster. After all, it still is her property, not yours. You must do whatever is commercially reasonable. If it has value, that means sell it and send her the money, minus your costs of sale.

As a practical matter, I think the facts show some family dysfuction that is an overarching issue of more long-term significance than a doggone hutch. I think everyone should stop focusing on their legal rights and refocus on how a family can get along for the common long-term good. Amen.