Property Litigation Newsletter – March 2010
Disposal of a former tenant's goods
What can a Landlord do with former tenant's goods that have been left at the premises? We look at the Robot Arenas case and consider where this leaves Landlords.
Landlords frequently find themselves having to deal with former tenant's goods which have been left behind. Throwing the goods away might be the preferred option for the landlord but this should only be done after careful consideration of their position.
In the case of Robot Arenas v Waterfield and Others, Robot Arenas had bought the arena set previously used to film the television series 'Robot Wars'. Robot Arenas stored this arena at an RAF Base and, after its rental agreement expired in August 2004, had simply left the equipment at the base. The RAF base was then sold in January 2005. At the same time, also in January 2005, Robot Arenas wrote to the former owner's agent seeking to remove its equipment. Unaware of the existence of this letter, the new property owner, having found the goods at the property, wrote to the former owner asking it to remove them. When the former owner did not respond within five weeks, the new property owner had the goods thrown away when clearing out the building.
Robot Arenas issued proceedings against the new property owner and claimed substantial damages. The question was whether the new property owner was liable in damages having thrown the goods away.
What is the usual position?
In this situation, the Landlord is classed as an "involuntary bailee" of the goods, i.e. is unintentionally in possession of property belonging to another. Unless those goods have been abandoned by the true owner, the Landlord may not simply dispose of them (or at least not straight away).
To establish abandonment in order to throw the goods away, the Landlord must prove that the owner of the goods not only intended to abandon the goods but had actually physically relinquished ownership.
If there is no clear act of abandonment, disposal is unlawful unless the procedure set out in the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977 ("the Act") has been followed.
To comply with the Act a notice must be given to the owner of the goods and the goods can only then be sold if they are not collected within a reasonable period of time. Prior to sale, reasonable care must be taken of the goods and any proceeds of sale must be accounted for.
What if the goods have not been abandoned and the Landlord cannot identify who the owner of the goods is?
In this particular case, the procedure set out under the Act had not been followed because the new property owner did not know who the goods belonged to. The key issue then was whether, in consideration of the circumstances, the goods had been abandoned and if not whether the new property owner had still been entitled to throw the goods away.
The letter sent by Robot Arenas in January 2005 led the Court to find that the goods had not been abandoned. As such the case depended on whether the new property owner knew or ought reasonably to have known that the goods belonged to someone else, where the new property owner had a duty to make reasonable enquiries in that regard.
The Court's view was that the new property owner was entitled to believe that no one was claiming ownership of the goods and so was entitled to throw these away. The new property owner had bought the property with vacant possession and so there was no obvious person to contact in relation to ownership of the goods other than the former owner. Having contacted the former owner - and therefore having made reasonable enquiries - on receiving no response, the new property owner was entitled to proceed to scrap the equipment.
Where does this leave landlords? When faced with goods that are left at a Landlord premises, by making reasonable enquiries as to who might own the goods, a Landlord can protect itself from future claims. How far that duty extends depends on the facts of each case of course; the Landlord needs to take particular care where the goods in question seem to have some value as in those cases the risk of being sued for substantial charges is far greater than where goods appear to have been left simply because they are of no further use and so have no value.
Rob Nicholson is a partner within the Michelmores property litigation team. For further information on the issues raised in this article, please contact Rob at robert.nicholson@michelmores.com.
This information has been prepared by Michelmores LLP as a general guide only and does not constitute legal advice on any specific matter and should not be relied upon as such. We recommend that you seek professional advice before taking action. No liability can be accepted by us for any action taken or not taken as a result of this information.
