Should a tenant die and they still owe some money, should the landlord lock up their stuff until their next of kin pays the money that's owed? Supposing no one is ready to pay the dead person's debts does the landlord have the right to sell everything the tenant left behind?
I think it depends on how much the tenant owed the landlord. If the debt is not too big, maybe the landlord could let go of the person's belongings as an act or respect and condolence for the person who passed away. If the debt is really big, the landlord should talk to the closest family member of the tenant to talk about having to keep the belongings and possible selling to pay off the debt.
You'll want to handle this very carefully to avoid possibly pissing people off or worse. I wouldn't even mention any money owed by the tenant to the family for a least a month or 2. If the tenant wasn't behind on rent, I wouldn't even worry about the lease - the decent thing to do would be to just let the family get everything out within a few weeks. Even if the tenant was a deadbeat who owed you several month's rent at the time of death, it may not be a bad idea to just let it go - particularly if the tenant died tragically. If they were old and simply died of natural causes and owed you back rent, you could contact the family in a month or 2 to see about possibly getting the money owed IF the tenant had any assets of any value (cash, retirement accounts, life insurance, automobiles owned free and clear, etc). Tough situation either way.
If you had details of the next of kin, it might be sensible to send them a letter stating that you are in possession of that persons belongings. Offer them the chance to collect the goods but remind them that you cannot store them indefinitely and will have no choice but to dispose of them if not collected within 28 days.
How does this happen anyway? I mean, if I was a landlord I would collect the rent for january on january 1st. I'd have a security deposit of 1 or 2 months minimum. So I don't really see many situations where a tenant would be owing me money, unless he was behind on his rent but then he would be an ex-tenant pretty fast.
Where money and death are concerned, I think it's always going to be a tricky situation to handle. A lot would depend on how much was owed, and what the tenant and the family they left behind was like. I'd probably try a little subtle negotiations before I started selling off a dead persons personal belongings anyway.
I know that it's pretty tough (but not impossible) to evict a tenant in my state and many others in the US. They can be many months behind before they actually have to leave. Tread lightly when dealing with survivors after the death of their loved one - they not only are grieving, they're also not the ones who rented from you. They're also dealing with burial expenses, legal issues (succession / will, etc), and of course emotional issues. They may be in a position where they're having to pay the deceased's bills for many months while getting everything settled. And they may be getting hit with many surprises from others who the deceased dealt with and from the deceased themselves. I know that after my father died fairly young and unexpectedly, reality was somewhat different than the rosy picture he painted me of how easy it would be to settle his affairs and how much money his estate would be worth. Not the time to be an ass.
Laws vary from place to place, but most require you to give a certain grace period for rent payments before taking action. Then you have to post your intent to evict, which often means 30 or 60 days notice. If they don't leave on their own you may need to get law enforcement to help, and this isn't likely to be a high priority for most police stations. It's very difficult to evict deadbeat tenants. Beyond that, if someone has passed away, particularly if it is unexpected, you will need to get someone come in to pack their belongings, move them out, and clean the apartment. If the relatives don't do that within a timely manner, you will need to do it yourself or hire someone to do so, and then either store or dispose of the belongings. That costs money and you would want the tenant's estate to be responsible for the cost, but as others have already stated asking relatives of the deceased for money while they are grieving is in poor taste and a difficult thing to breach.
Well yes in some countries I guess it could take months to evict a deadbeat tenant... and of course with my luck they would just drop dead right before that! I guess in that situation I would be pretty satisfied by just having them out of the place and the security deposit should cover for most of the losses. Though in these cases I don't think I would have the slightest problem with getting their estate to pay for it. A situation would be different with a tenant who had been nice and done everything the way he should, in that case I wouldn't mind just forgetting about a small debt.
I often choose to make my decisions with the good of my heart rather than the most logical of judgements. So, being dead and all, their family must be paying a fortune for their funeral, their casket, their burial, their other debts, etc... (Life insurance doesn't cover everything, ya know?). And, if I was doing well as an apartment building owner, I'd just send the best regards to the family. If I were really struggling to meet rent, I'd probably hold it up to them to pay - with apologies of course... But I could only hope that they'd understand. This's making me out to be a softie, isn't it.
