my former roomate left behind items in his room for over a month..
Question Details: My partner and I are on the lease for our apartment, we were renting the second room to a friend who has not occupied the room since early May 09, we were under the belief that as on june 1st his room would be cleared out since May's rent was paid. It is now June 22nd and after numerous atempts via phone calls and Myspace there has still been no contact with us and he still has items in the room and in the apartment he is still in posession of the apartment keys as well.Today I had the landlord change the locks to the apartment, I had given our former roomate a deadline of Monday 6/22 to clear out the apartment but it has not been cleared out yet. MY question is do I have any rights to dispose or take posession of the items left in the room and apartment?
I'm not a Hawaii lawyer, but my research suggests that you can go through this person's belongings that are left behind, and those that truly have no value, you can throw out. For items of value, you can store them at his expense (rent a storage unit, pay the first month's rent, send him a letter and tell him where the things are, and after that it's his problem). Otherwise, you can sell them or give them to charity, after 15 days' advance written notice; if you want to sell them, you also have to run an ad in the paper for three days and hold the money for 30 days after the sale before it's yours. There are more details to this, and you should talk to a lawyer in your area for advice you can rely on. One place to find a lawyer on your island is our website, http://attorneypages.com
