Self Storage and Lapsed Payments
A self storage contract may not be planned for the long haul, but the convenience and ease of depositing a quantity of items for the day that they will come in useful again, of for the day that you have more space, is irresistible and becomes part of one’s monthly bills. The problem inevitably is that the financial commitment to keeping items in storage can quickly lapse or be regarded as less important as newer or more pressing matters that crop up. The attitude may be one that you can just delay or fob off the payment, like one does to their utility bill when it arrives on the doormat slap bang in the middle of Christmas, after all it can’t make a big difference to anybody, or can it?
Well actually it does make a difference. Your storage contract will be fairly transparent about what will happen if you do not meet your payment schedule – your belongings will be taken into possession of the storage provider, and they can auction off or sell items to cover lost expenses, or just empty the unit into a skip if they feel like it. That may sound rather cold, but to them you are just another defaulting customer losing them money, and they could do with a better client in the unit as soon as possible.
However, there is some room for compassion. When payment is missed, the storage company should make attempts to contact the tenant and find out what is going on. It is hoped that any problems can be sorted out with some communication, either to sort out a mistake on the tenant’s understanding of the payment plan, or for both parties to agree that the tenant should move out of self storage with immediate effect. If no responses are received or no suitable way forward worked out, then the storage company will assume ownership of the items in the storage, as per terms in the signed contract, usually by replacing the lock.
It is worth pointing out at this stage that final notice is usually served by letter and via a registered postal method, so the storage facility knows that the notice has been received and read. It is therefore very important to ensure your storage provider always has your current contact details, in case they need to contact you for any reason, not just this. The notice will set out in writing what will happen next, which is usually that the unit will be cleared out by a given date if the payment dispute is not resolved. If there is still no resolution of the issue by that time, then be sure that you will be saying goodbye to your stored belongings, irrespective of value either monetary or personal – neither should be a concern to the storage provider who needs to keep their business afloat. Incidentally, it is highly unlikely that the storage facility is going to shop around to get a good price on what you had stored in there, they will almost always get a much better deal by selling the whole unit as a lot to someone who can relieve them of the belongings immediately and getting a new customer in to fill the space – hence the existence of storage auctions.
In this day and age, when people seem to play a game of holding off debts for things they thought they could afford, self storage companies do not hang around with dealing with the consequences and keeping their businesses on track.
Posted in: Storage Info