Today I got a question from one of my clients who had a property in which the client in which her renter moved out of her property without paying the rent. In addition, her tenant left a whole bunch of stuff in the house.

The question she had for me was what she needed to do in order to lease the property again. My advice to her was that you needed to get legal possession of the property.

It’s important that you play this by the book because if you cut corners and get caught, the punishment may be way worse than the little bit of convenience you gained by cutting corners.

What that means is that she needs to file for eviction with the court even though the tenant was already gone. This is especially important when the tenant has left a bunch of stuff in the house.

The reason she needed to go through the court is because there is always a chance that the tenant could come back and claim that they had some hardship that took them out of town.

Now let’s suppose that my client had gotten rid of all of the items in the house. In that case, the tenant could make a ridiculous claim against the landlord for throwing away their their “valuable” items. If the landlord did not have legal possession of the property when those items were removed, they could be liable for damages. Who knows what the tenant might claim was left in the property.

The nature of the items in the property is also important. Let’s suppose that the landlord gets legal possession of the property. In Oklahoma, if the items in the property can truly be considered trash, they may simply be disposed of. If, however, some of the items have value, the landlord is required to store those items for a period of time before disposing of them so the tenant has an opportunity to settle their debt with the landlord in order to get their property back.