Clearing a rented property: landlord and tenant

The belongings are still the tenant’s

This is the part landlords most often get wrong, and it is expensive to get wrong.

A tenancy ending does not transfer ownership of anything left in the property. The sofa is still the tenant’s sofa. What changes is that the landlord becomes responsible for looking after it, whether they wanted the job or not, and disposing of somebody else’s property without following the right process can leave the landlord liable for its value.

The framework is the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977. It is not a landlord-and-tenant statute at all; it is the general law about interfering with goods that belong to somebody else, and it applies here because that is exactly what a clearance is.

What a landlord has to do first

The practical shape of it, and this is where taking advice is worth the money if the goods look valuable:

1. Record what is there. Photograph every room and make an inventory before anything moves. This protects both sides and it is the only defence against a later claim that something valuable has gone missing.
2. Serve notice. In writing, to the tenant’s last known address, setting out what has been left, where it is being kept, and what will happen if it is not collected.
3. Make reasonable attempts to make contact. Phone, email, the forwarding address, the guarantor. Keep a record of every attempt, because “reasonable” is judged on what you actually tried.
4. Allow a reasonable period. A month is the period most local authorities apply to their own abandoned-goods policies and is a sensible default.
5. Then sell or dispose. If you sell, the proceeds belong to the tenant, less your reasonable costs of storage and sale. Keep the accounting.

Two cautions. None of this is a route to ending a tenancy: if the tenancy has not properly ended, clearing the property is likely to be an unlawful eviction, which is a criminal offence. And documents, identity papers and anything obviously irreplaceable should be kept aside rather than sold, whatever the notice period.

Why this waste is not household waste

Household waste is waste from a domestic property produced by the person living in it. A landlord clearing a property they own but do not occupy is producing business waste, and the distinction matters because the duties are different.

So a landlord needs the paperwork a householder does not. The waste transfer note has to describe the waste, its quantity, the time and place of transfer, both parties’ details and their authorisation, and both signatures.

If you clear several properties a year with the same contractor, a season ticket covering a series of transfers of the same non-hazardous waste, for up to a year, is the mechanism designed for you.

Check the carrier’s registration before the first load, not after. Upper tier, and in date.

What a tenant should do

Take everything. That sounds obvious and it is still the main advice, because the alternative is losing both the goods and the argument.

If you genuinely cannot move something before the tenancy ends:

• Agree it in writing with the landlord before you go, including who is paying to remove it and by when. A verbal “leave the sofa, it’s fine” is worth nothing three weeks later.
• Give a forwarding address. If the landlord cannot contact you, the clock on your belongings starts anyway and you have removed your own best argument.
• Take photographs of the property and its contents on the day you hand back the keys.

If you have left and want things back, ask in writing and quickly. The position is much stronger before a notice period has run than after.

Deposits and clearance costs

A landlord can usually deduct the reasonable cost of clearing genuine rubbish from a deposit, because leaving a property clear is a normal tenancy obligation.

What is much less straightforward is deducting for disposing of goods that had value, especially if the process above was not followed. A deposit scheme adjudicator will want to see the inventory, the notice, the attempts at contact, and the invoice from the clearance firm with its carrier registration number on it.

Which is a good reason to do all four even when the pile in the hallway looks obviously like rubbish. It usually is. Occasionally it is not, and the paperwork costs an hour against a claim that costs considerably more.