A Tenant Left Belongings Behind: California Rules for LA Rental Owners

For Owners · Move-Out & Compliance · October 2026 · 14 min read

The keys come back, or they don’t, and the unit still has a couch, a few boxes and a bicycle in it. California has a written procedure for exactly this, in Civil Code sections 1980 through 1991. It tells you who gets a notice, how long you wait, where the things sit in the meantime, and when you can sell, keep or throw them out.

The procedure is optional. You do not have to use it. But following it is what earns you the liability protection in section 1989. Skip it, and the statute says plainly that nothing in it affects anyone’s rights or liabilities. That leaves you defending a hauling decision with no safe harbor at all.

This guide covers the two situations owners run into: a tenant who has stopped paying and seems to be gone before the lease ends, and a tenancy that has ended with property still in the unit. It also covers the tenant who writes asking for their things back, and what changes after a Sheriff lockout.

Two different questions: has the tenancy ended, and what about the things

The abandoned-property chapter only starts once a tenancy has terminated and the tenant has vacated. Section 1981 says so in its first line. Before that point, the belongings in the unit are a tenant’s belongings in a tenant’s home, and nothing in sections 1980 to 1991 lets you touch them.

So the first question is always about the tenancy. A tenancy can end in the ordinary ways: a lease that expires and is not renewed, a notice that runs its course, a buyout, a tenant who hands back keys and says they are done, or a court judgment. If none of those has happened and the tenant has simply stopped answering, you are in section 1951.3 territory, covered next.

When the tenant disappears before the lease ends

Civil Code 1951.3 gives a residential owner a way to treat a lease as abandoned without going to court. It does not apply to commercial property.

When you can use it

Two conditions, both required. Rent must have been due and unpaid for at least 14 consecutive days, and you must reasonably believe the tenant has abandoned the property. The statute adds one useful line: the fact that you knew the tenant left personal property behind does not, by itself, mean your belief was unreasonable.

The notice and the dates

The notice of belief of abandonment names a termination date. That date must be at least 15 days after the notice is personally served, or at least 18 days after it is mailed. Service is personal delivery or first-class mail, postage prepaid, to the tenant’s last known address. If you have reason to think mail to that address will not reach them, also send it to any other address you know of where the tenant can reasonably be expected to receive it. The statute sets out the form, and it is worth using as written.

How the tenant stops it

The lease does not terminate if, before the date in your notice, the tenant gives you a written notice saying they do not intend to abandon the property and giving an address where they can be served by certified mail in an unlawful detainer case. The tenant can also defeat the abandonment by proving that rent was not 14 days unpaid when you gave the notice, that your belief was not reasonable, or that they paid all or part of the unpaid rent between 14 days before the notice and the termination date.

Two limits matter. A partial payment in that window is enough to stop the abandonment, so accepting money changes the result. And the notice of belief of abandonment is not a three-day notice to pay rent or quit. Section 1951.3 says you can still serve one, and that serving the abandonment notice does not satisfy the requirements for it. If the tenant answers and stays, an unlawful detainer still needs its own notice.

What you cannot do while you wait

Civil Code 789.3 prohibits a landlord, acting with intent to end a residential tenant’s occupancy, from changing the locks, removing outside doors or windows, cutting off utilities, or removing the tenant’s personal property or furnishings without the tenant’s prior written consent. The one exception for belongings is property removed under the chapter that starts at section 1980.

The penalty is actual damages plus up to $100 for each day or part of a day the violation continues, with a minimum award of $250 for each separate cause of action, and the court awards reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party. A tenant can also ask for an injunction while the case is pending. Clearing out a unit you only think is abandoned is the exact act this section is written to punish.

Sort the property before you send anything

Three categories come out of the procedure before it starts.

• Lost property. Under section 1982, anything you reasonably believe was lost, as opposed to left, goes through the lost-property rules beginning at Civil Code 2080, which run through the police or sheriff. If the department refuses to take it, you may handle it under the abandoned-property chapter instead.
• Things the chapter does not cover. Section 1981 excludes manufactured homes, mobilehomes and commercial coaches with their contents, property owned by a public utility to provide utility service, and animals covered by the separate animal-care rules in the Civil Code and the Food and Agricultural Code. A pet left in a unit is handled under those rules, not by notice and storage.
• Records. Papers, files, photographs and data are “records” under section 1980, and section 1983 presumes the former tenant owns them. They go on the notice like everything else.

The notice under section 1983

Who gets one

The former tenant, and any other person you reasonably believe owns some of the property. A roommate’s furniture, a rented washer, a borrowed bike with a name on it: each owner you reasonably believe exists gets a notice. “Reasonable belief” in section 1980 is what a prudent person would know without investigating, with one twist. If you have specific information that an investigation, including a search of public records, would more probably than not turn up something useful, and the cost is reasonable compared with the likely value of the property, then the standard includes what that investigation would have shown.

What it must say

The notice describes the property well enough for the owner to identify it. You may describe only part of it, but the liability protection in section 1989 does not cover anything you leave off. A trunk, suitcase, box or other container that is locked, fastened or tied shut may be described as such without listing what is inside. The notice also tells the person that reasonable storage costs may be charged before the property is returned, where it can be claimed, and the date by which they must claim it.

Section 1984 gives a form for the former tenant and section 1985 a form for other owners. Each includes two dates: a date at least two days after the tenant vacated, by which claiming the property keeps storage costs down, and the final claim date. The tenant’s notice must also carry one of two statements. Either the property will be sold at a public sale after published notice, with any surplus paid to the county, or “Because this property is believed to be worth less than $700, it may be kept, sold, or destroyed without further notice if you fail to reclaim it within the time indicated above.”

How it is served

Personal delivery, or first-class mail, postage prepaid, to the person’s last known address. If you mail the former tenant, one copy goes to the unit they vacated. If there is reason to think a mailed notice will not reach the person, also send it to any other address you know of. If the former tenant gave you an email address, you may also email the notice, in addition to delivering or mailing it.

Storing the property

Section 1986 gives you two choices: leave the property in the vacated unit, or move it to a place of safekeeping. Either way you must use reasonable care. You are not liable for a loss you did not cause deliberately or through negligence.

Storage costs follow section 1990. If you store the property in the unit, the cost is the fair rental value of the space reasonably needed for it, for the time it is stored. If the former tenant reclaims property stored there within two days of vacating, you may not charge anything, and section 1987(c) says the same about release. The former tenant can be charged the unpaid storage cost for everything left behind. Another owner can be charged only for the property they claim. Nobody can be charged twice for the same cost.

An owner planning to re-rent quickly has an obvious tension here: a unit full of stored property is a unit you cannot show. Section 1986 allows you to move the property to a place of safekeeping, and section 1990 lets you charge the reasonable cost of storage. Write down what moved, where, and when. The inventory and photographs you take at that point are what will answer any later claim.

Release, or disposal after the claim date

If someone claims it in time

Under section 1987, you release the property to the former tenant, or at your option to another person you reasonably believe owns it, once they pay the reasonable storage cost and take possession by the date in the notice. If the notice said the property would be sold and the former tenant shows up before the sale, you must still release it once they pay storage, advertising and sale costs incurred up to that point.

The $700 line

If nobody claims the property, section 1988 requires a public sale by competitive bidding, with one exception. If you reasonably believe the total resale value of the unreleased property is less than $700, you may keep it for your own use or dispose of it any way you choose. The figure is total resale value, not what the tenant paid, and it is the whole lot, not each item.

If the property is worth $700 or more

The sale is advertised under Government Code 6066: once a week for two successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation published in the county where the sale will be held. The last publication must be at least five days before the sale, and nothing may be published before the last claim date in your notices. The published notice describes the property the same way the claim notice does, with the same rule for locked containers. You and the former tenant may both bid.

From the proceeds you deduct the costs of storage, advertising and sale. Any balance the former tenant or another owner does not claim goes to the treasury of the county where the sale took place within 30 days after the sale, and the owner then has one year from that payment to claim it from the county.

What the procedure protects you from

Section 1989 is the reason to follow the steps. Release property to the former tenant and you are not liable for it to anyone. Release it to someone else you reasonably believed was the owner, or dispose of it under section 1988, and you are not liable to anyone who got a notice. You are also not liable to a person who did not get one, unless that person proves you believed, or reasonably should have believed, they had an interest in the property, and that you knew or should have known their address after a reasonable investigation.

That protection reaches only the property described in your notice. An item you hauled away without listing it sits outside the safe harbor.

When the tenant asks for the property first

Civil Code 1965 covers a different starting point: the tenant writes to you. If a former residential tenant asks in writing within 18 days of vacating, describes the property and gives a mailing address, and you have the property, you must give it back once the tenant pays your reasonable costs of removing and storing it.

The timing is tight on your side. Your written demand for those costs must itemize each charge and be mailed to the address the tenant gave or handed to the tenant or their representative within five days after you actually receive the request, unless you return the property first. The tenant then has to collect it at a mutually agreed time no later than 72 hours after paying. Reasonable costs include the labor and transport of moving the property and storage that does not exceed the fair rental value of the space.

Retaining property in violation of section 1965 exposes you to actual damages up to the property’s value, up to $250 for each bad-faith violation, and the court may award reasonable attorney’s fees and costs to the prevailing party. Three days is presumed to be a reasonable time to hand it over, absent evidence to the contrary. Section 1965 does not apply once you have started or finished the abandoned-property procedure under section 1980 and following. If two people make conflicting demands, the first timely request wins.

After a Sheriff lockout

When a tenancy ends with an unlawful detainer judgment, the writ of possession itself tells the tenant what happens to their things. Code of Civil Procedure 715.010 requires the writ to state that personal property left after the owner is put in possession will be sold or disposed of under section 1174 unless the tenant or another owner pays the reasonable cost of storage and takes the property within 15 days after the owner takes possession.

Code of Civil Procedure 1174(e) through (m), applied to writs by section 715.030, then borrows most of the abandoned-property chapter. Lost property still goes through the police or sheriff. You give a section 1983 notice to anyone other than the tenant you reasonably believe owns property, unless a section 1965 return has already started. You store the property, release it on payment of storage costs by the date in the writ for the tenant or the date in the notice for others, and dispose of anything unclaimed under section 1988, with the same $700 line. The same liability protections follow.

The Sheriff’s lockout is the end of the eviction, not the end of your obligations. The 15 days run from the lockout, and the property should be secured and stored the same day. Our guide to the unlawful detainer process in Los Angeles covers the steps that come before it.

Sending the abandonment and property notices together

Section 1991 allows a shortcut. When you give a notice of belief of abandonment, you may give the section 1983 property notice at the same time, even though the tenancy does not end until the date in the abandonment notice. You may also combine them into one document, so long as it contains everything both sections require. The chapter only reaches property left after a tenancy has ended, so if the tenant responds and the tenancy continues, the property notice has nothing to act on.

Inglewood, Culver City, Beverly Hills and Los Angeles

The abandoned-property procedure is state law and reads the same in every city in Los Angeles County. What changes city to city is how a tenancy may be ended in the first place. A tenancy that ends by notice, buyout or court in Inglewood, Culver City, Beverly Hills or the City of Los Angeles is governed by that city’s just-cause, relocation and filing rules, and a tenant who left under a no-fault notice may be owed relocation money regardless of what they left behind. Whether an abandonment under section 1951.3 interacts with a particular city’s rules is a question for a landlord-tenant attorney before you serve the notice.

The city rules are in our guides to ending a tenancy in Inglewood, Culver City and Beverly Hills. Once the unit is clear, the next steps are the move-out inspection and the security deposit accounting.

Questions owners ask

The tenant moved out and left junk worth almost nothing. Can I just throw it away?

Not on day one. The $700 rule in section 1988 applies to property that was not claimed after a section 1983 notice. Send the notice with the under-$700 statement, wait until the claim date has passed, and then you may keep or dispose of it. Photograph everything before and after.

Can I deduct storage costs from the security deposit?

The abandoned-property chapter lets you charge reasonable storage costs to the person who claims the property. Whether a particular cost can come out of the deposit is a security deposit question under Civil Code 1950.5, and the answer depends on the facts. Confirm it with a real estate attorney before you itemize it.

The tenant stopped paying and I have not seen them in three weeks. Can I change the locks?

No. Changing locks to end a residential tenant’s occupancy violates Civil Code 789.3. Use the section 1951.3 notice of belief of abandonment, or serve a three-day notice and file an unlawful detainer. Either way the tenancy has to end lawfully before you take the unit back.

A car was left in the parking space. Does this procedure cover it?

Section 1981 excludes mobilehomes, manufactured homes and commercial coaches, but does not name ordinary vehicles. Vehicles also have their own registration, towing and lien rules that this guide does not cover. Ask an attorney before having a car removed.

Do I have to sell valuable items at auction even if they would be worth more sold privately?

If you reasonably believe the unclaimed property is worth $700 or more in total, section 1988 requires a public sale by competitive bidding after published notice. A private sale is only available under the under-$700 rule.

Can I send the notice by email only?

No. Section 1983 requires personal delivery or first-class mail. Email is allowed in addition, if the former tenant gave you an email address, but not instead.

Sources and disclaimer. California Civil Code sections 789.3, 1951.3, 1965, 1980, 1980.5, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 and 2080; Code of Civil Procedure sections 715.010, 715.020, 715.030 and 1174; and Government Code section 6066, read from the text published by the California Legislature as reproduced at California.Public.Law. Current as of October 2026. This article is general information for property owners from a California DRE-licensed property management company, not legal advice. Statutes and local ordinances change, and the facts of a move-out matter, so confirm your notices, storage costs and any deposit deductions with a real estate attorney.