A second tenant on a lease has died. The husband and wife signed the lease mid April last year. Wife passed away from long term illness July. This left husband of 67 in the home. He always pays - paid on time.

Yesterday (January 6) we had not received the rent and started our contact routine. Eventually calling his work number where we were told she would pass the message on to the guy. We also left messages on tenants cell phone. Around 4pm we get a call from his sister that he has a massive heart attack and died a few days ago. Sister said she didn't know our number or address and was hoping we would call.

So here we are. Sister in law tenant on the premises who has on where to go til the beginning of Feb. Expired tenants belongs-- full house--- that she said she can't take with her. She's moving in with a sister in law.

Once upon a time, we had a little grandma who had custody of her grandson. However, she had a prescription drug problem, and CPS was going to take her grandson away from her. She took the kid and everything she could fit into her vehicle, and fled the state in the middle of the night, right before CPS was going to show up. That, of course, left behind everything she couldn't fit into her vehicle...

We took it slow, through the courts, to dispose of her stuff and gain possession. We had the usual words about "take your stuff with you because we'll get rid of whatever's left behind", but we'd never dealt with it on that scale, and wanted to protect ourselves. That was when we discovered TX didn't have a definition of abandonment.

We were fortunate that there was an auction house nearby at the time. She had a bunch of Coke collectibles, plus furniture and other major stuff. We contacted them; they cleared it all out; they sold it. They kept their percent for the trouble (50%? can't remember) and the check they cut us was almost exactly what we were out for lost rent.

But that was when we modified the lease to specifically allow us to dispose of entire households' worth of stuff... giving us a lien on all non-exempt property if tenant fails to timely pay rent, one form of abandonment is when the sole tenant is deceased, abandonment gives us the right to immediate possession, etc-- and so on. Because we didn't have any TX laws to conflict with, it was easier for us.

I've only had to use it once since then, not anywhere near the same scale. But it's useful that it's there, because there's no way to predict when death or other circumstances will leave a situation in limbo.

I am not certain anymore exactly how many residents I have lost over the years. It never gets easier - especially when family is not nearby.

How long were the couple married?

I read something that basically said that if a couple have been married for over 35 years, the probability of the second one going within 2 years after the first is over 85%.

Ray that certainly hit the probability....

Last January we had a tenant who lost his wife. He was kind of out of it and his son came from CA. The man told us he was done inside and to dispose of all his stuff. Signed to that agreement.

We hired out a 15 X 30 20 yds dumpster. Hired some help from H-depot lot and took us 4 hours to unpack the place into the dumpster. That situation the stuff was junkie stuff. This place has nice stuff--- so if I can get the "I'm done" papers signed that would be great.

Right now I filed the none pay of rent with the court.

I'm not sure what is legal in GA. What I would do would be to get copies of the two death certificates and move all the stuff into storage. Get the house cleaned out and re-rented.

I don't think any judge would question that the place has been abandoned if the tenants are dead.

I had a long term tenancy with a elderly man and his female partner. She passed away, then shortly afterwards he also passed. I was smart to get a list of all known relatives. Everyone was located on the other side of the country and couldn't be bothered.

So I called the tenants x-wife, who I met once about 20 years prior, to let her know of her know of her x-husbands passing AND some of her old things are left in the unit.

She was happy to come over and clean the place out and even had a spare key. The locks were original to the building, never re-keyed. She also had a copy of her x-husbands old will giving her everything.

I offered her 500.00 -- no bite yet.

Filed for dispo Friday afternoon. Tenants name and or tenant in possession.