Legal Question in Legal Malpractice in Pennsylvania
Rental Property usage
I have been using a 2 car detached garage for about 7 years to store some construction materials.I have no written agreement or lease. My verbal agreement with the owner was that I could use the property if I would clean it up for her. I removed a small frame building in front of the garage, added a new electrical service, cleaned out tons of debris from inside the garage, took down some trees and discarded all of the aforementioned debris. I also did a few free jobs at the garage owners residence.
The garage was in seriously bad shape structurally and neighbors were complaining for years about this eyesore.I had talked to the owner many times about what she was going to do with the property and she replied that she owned it with her 2 siblings and they couldn't agree on a solution so it just sat and rotted away.
I was shocked to go to the garage today and find it was demolished. About $4000.00 worth of my stored construction materials had been thrown away by a demolition contractor hired by the garageowner. I was never contacted about the impending demo work and I even talked with the owner about 1 month prior to the demo and she said nothing at all about it.
Needless to say I'm PISSED!! What can I do about it??
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Rental Property usage
You could see an attorney, but you probably know that already. (I don't know why your message has a legal malpractice category, but no matter).
$4000 is within the limit for small claims court. In PA, that's the District Justice. You'd need to go to the one whose district includes the owner's location.
What we have here is a "bailment." That means someone else had custody of your property. She has a duty to use reasonable care: she's not an insurer, so if lightning struck and burned down the garage, that's not her fault.
The duty under a bailment varies, depending on such things as any express agreement, and who was benefiting. You both benefited from this arrangement. You've got a pretty good argument that the homeowner was negligent in not notifying you to remove your stuff before the garage was torn down. So locate the district justice court, (they just changed the name to magisterial district justice), go down there, the nice clerk will help you fill out the paperwork, you'll get a hearing date, go down and tell your story.
BTW, the owner's insurance might cover the claim, in which case they might be interested in settling, but they'll certainly haggle and question your estimate of the value.
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