Our great tenant of almost nine years passed in hospital on April 3rd. April rent was paid for him on March 30th. The family finished getting everything out of the house this morning. But the deceased tenant's car is still there, with no keys for it. Neither the brother nor the ex have the car keys, nor are they anywhere in the house. They have basically abandoned the car.

The brother is the complete opposite of our deceased tenant and not easy to deal with. The ex is OK but lives quite a distance away. Can we have it towed? We need to start working on the house but we don't want family members coming by... the car is the only thing that might cause them to do so. So we need to wrap this up.

(We gave the family extra time to get everything out of the house since his 7 & 9 year old little boys were with him probably at least 85% of the time. Losing their dad as well as their home all at once would be too much. He was a great person and the better parent. The ex has stepped up to help the boys transition gradually between the two homes stopping by with them before and after school, keeping them in their same school though it's been a 40-minute drive for her each way every day.)

Maybe ask the ex if she want's to sell it if it is her's by probate or ??.

Ignition switches can be changed or rekeyed.

Titles, if lost, can be had by duplicates from the DMV.

Hopefully it is a 57 Chevy convertible with a continental kit, but probably not.

Whoever is the administrator of his estate needs to sign it over to you. Then you can get a title from the DMV & sell it. As Richard said, it can be re-keyed by a locksmith.

Thanks. There is no administrator. His parents and one older brother are deceased. There is not even an obituary for him, though we found a givesendgo, apparently set up by his ex. The givesendgo has had very little response. There was no funeral or any kind of memorial. We learned this from an elderly aunt who has had nearly as much trouble getting information as we have. The aunt was doing her best to help him but actually told us to go ahead and have the car towed. (It's a Chevy Cruze, which she said he purchased used about a year ago to replace a Kia.)

The one difficult older brother will not answer texts, and was actually trying to keep us from knowing that our tenant had passed. The ex only started communicating when we found her on social media and messaged that we had to hear from her or the locks would be changed immediately. I don't believe that she was deliberately not communicating. She had/has her hands full with the little boys, ages 7 and 9, the youngest of whom is autistic. Once we reached her, she's been in touch briefly by text. She seems to be doing her best for the transition for those little boys, but we are understandably not her priority. She texted yesterday morning to say that she and the tenant's older brother had everything out that they planned to get. They left the car for us to deal with.

The tenant was 57 and was doing ok as a years-long respected foreman at a fencing company and was one of our favorite tenants - an optimist who always had a smile on his face. He lived for those little boys. He had never paid late until December when we first learned that he had frequently been in the hospital. We learned from the aunt that this had been going on since last September with frequent ER and hospital admissions. (The older brother will not communicate with the aunt either, but the aunt has had some limited communication with the ex. The aunt's biggest concern is for those little boys. It seems that this elderly aunt was the one and only reliable source of help to him, bringing food, etc. But she obviously had her limitations due to her own age.)

Do you have anything in your lease that says anything about abandoned property? if so, follow your lease.

I'd just send an email or text that says if the car is not removed by 5/15, it will be disposed of. Whatever it costs to haul it away, take it from the security deposit. If there is anything left in the security deposit after cleaning the unit to return it to "rent ready" send that in accordance with VA state law to the lady who got the kids. If you get any money for the car, just add it back into the security deposit. There are lots of "we haul junk cars away with no title" people on facebook market place.

First time I had to deal with an abandoned vehicle I just called a tow company who took it for free. I'm sure they kept it until the storage charges were more than the worth.

Chris,

I appreciate your good will and compassion.

Don't think me cruel, but your guy is gone, 30 days of mourning, and his family is not helping. Time to get real.

YOUR job is to protect your business, just the like the funeral director who says

"Sorry for your loss. Now it's time to pay the bill."

You have given them plenty of time and energy!

First I would ask them for permission to remove the car, have them sign a paper.

If not, I would give them written notice by text, 5 days to remove the car.

Locally I can get a new title for $100 at Small Claims court.

Or have a junker pick it up for $250-300.

If it's near the street or right or way, (think drag it there) my city olice will tag it then tow it 72 hours later. Done and legal.

BRAD

PS The keys and title are somewhere - in his pants pocket from the hospital, top of dresser, on a hook near the door...Keys don't just "disappear".

BRAD

Had that happen when a tenant opted out of life in the apartment. The car was financed and the bank got with me, asking for the keys.

In my hood it had to be 15 years old to be "junk"...no title...haul it. Otherwise I needed a title.

I had a resident check himself out after getting divorce papers served to him. He took pills so it wasn’t a huge mess. He was no longer in contact with any family members.

His emergency contact was his soon to be ex- wife who feels responsible. I tried to deal with it by checking his credit report and reaching out to the credit union where it was financed at. The were not interested in talking with me at all- at that point.

I called a towing company who towed the thing away along with a boat on a trailer. They got rid of the stuff for me. I let the chief of the local police department what we were doing and why. He was an awesome resource who gave me a bar and number of an estranged daughter.

When the payments were 60 plus days late, the credit union brought a tow truck to that house and the car was gone. They asked where the car was at. I told them the truth, I didn’t know but I offered them an opportunity earlier on The tow driver thanked me. That assistant manager at that credit union called me within 20 minutes acting all friendly initially.

I again let them know that the car was gone. He advised me that if I stole the thing. I told them to reach out to the police

As for dealing with the other stuff , the daughter came up from a couple hours away to claim what ever she wanted. I’m going through some paperwork, she found a rough draft of a note and suddenly left. I reached out to her the next day, she said what she found, I reached out again to the chief with the notebook. I offered to her to send as much stuff she was willing to pay for shipping. She asked for a box of various pictures and memorabilia. I don’t remember if she ever did reimburse me for that first box.

I had a resident check himself out after getting divorce papers served to him. He took pills so it wasn’t a huge mess. He was no longer in contact with any family members.

His emergency contact was his soon to be ex- wife who feels responsible. I tried to deal with it by checking his credit report and reaching out to the credit union where it was financed at. The were not interested in talking with me at all- at that point.

I called a towing company who towed the thing away along with a boat on a trailer. They got rid of the stuff for me. I let the chief of the local police department what we were doing and why. He was an awesome resource who gave me a bar and number of an estranged daughter.

When the payments were 60 plus days late, the credit union brought a tow truck to that house and the car was gone. They asked where the car was at. I told them the truth, I didn’t know but I offered them an opportunity earlier on The tow driver thanked me. That assistant manager at that credit union called me within 20 minutes acting all friendly initially.

I again let them know that the car was gone. He advised me that if I stole the thing. I told them to reach out to the police

As for dealing with the other stuff , the daughter came up from a couple hours away to claim what ever she wanted. I’m going through some paperwork, she found a rough draft of a note and suddenly left. I reached out to her the next day, she said what she found, I reached out again to the chief with the notebook. I offered to her to send as much stuff she was willing to pay for shipping. She asked for a box of various pictures and memorabilia. I don’t remember if she ever did reimburse me for that first box.

Had a vehicle towed that was parked in my yard. At the damages hearing the ex-tenant told the judge it was thievery for me to have taken it.

I told the judge I had it hauled away because it was on my property.

Wow, what a lot of stories about abandoned tenant cars and how you guys dealt with it. I'll refer to all these stories if this ever happens to us again....

So the police wouldn't take it and a tow truck wanted a couple of hundred bucks before towing it. But we finally got this resolved. At least I think so.

The elderly aunt eventually told us that she'd taken the tenant to pick up the car when he bought it from a small independent dealership about 40 miles away. She called them when she finally remembered where it was. They gave her the name of the likely lender, who refused to talk to her without a loan number or an SSN. So we pulled that number from his file.

The lender now knows that the tenant has passed and plans to pick up the car. We're doing some improvements to this house so it really doesn't matter if it takes them a couple weeks or so to get it. But what an annoying thing to have spent so much time on.

The simplest way to get rid of a car like that is to get it illegally parked on a city street...