Process of Abondonment Eviction

My question involves an eviction in the state of: Ohio

Hey, I want to first say thank you for taking your time to read and give me your opinions.

My father recently moved back from FL, because he became ill. He purchased a house about an hour away from me. My family and I moved in with him, in order to take care of him.

We were still keeping our townhouse, so we did not move much out of our house. The beds, couches and everything except my TV is still there. The power and gas are still turned on. I do not owe any rent, although it is HUD housing.

I had been gone about a 10 days when I received a text from my neighbor. My apt had flooded and was leaking into his house. When I got there they had already entered my place, and sucked up all the water. There was a bill in the door with a notice that they had entered.

Fast forward 3 weeks, so it has only been about 40 days since I started staying with my father to take care of him. I get another text from the guy next door, saying they are in my place throwing everything away.

I race down there, and sure enough, they have a huge dumpster with some of my items already inside. It turns out, they assumed it was abandoned, and left a letter saying I had ten days to contact them. I never received it, since I had not been there. After the ten days they left another letter saying after 3 days they were throwing everything away. They also changed the locks. They never went and got a court order for any of this. Their lawyer told them they had sufficent enough cause to believe I had abandoned the property.

So, I looked into the case law for Ohio, and this is what I came up with:

Under law 5321.15:
(A) No landlord of residential premises shall initiate any act, including termination of utilities or services, exclusion from the premises, or threat of any unlawful act, against a tenant, or a tenant whose right to possession has terminated, for the purpose of recovering possession of residential premises, other than as provided in Chapters 1923., 5303., and 5321. of the Revised Code.

(B) No landlord of residential premises shall seize the furnishings or possessions of a tenant, or of a tenant whose right to possession has terminated, for the purpose of recovering rent payments, other than in accordance with an order issued by a court of competent jurisdiction.

(C) A landlord who violates this section is liable in a civil action for all damages caused to a tenant, or to a tenant whose right to possession has terminated, together with reasonable attorneys fees.

The bold text states they cannot exclude you from the premises, meaning change the locks, unless provided under chapters 1923, 5303, 5321. There is nothing in those chapters that state they can do that. It does state they have to get a court order to do so.

The code also states they have to hold my belonging for 30 days, which they did not do.

Also, I guess there is a clause in my lease about the abandonment, but the code restricts any clauses that directly undermine the ORC. Wouldn't circumventing the eviction process of going to court, and not holding my items for 30 days go against it?

I am still in the process of reading the code so input would be great. I have to go over there tomorrow and try and stop them from throwing all of stuff away, so this is important.

Thank you

You are looking in the wrong place. I suggest you reference the contract for your gov't paid housing, referencing you actually living there. The gov't would rather give free housing to someone who needs it.

HUD rules Chapter 6-9 permits the owner of the housing to establish abandonment rules as long as they do not violate time frames outlined by state or local law. Ohio does not have a time statute. As you noted, you are living at dads. I guess you are going to stay there now.

It would appear you are confusing an illegal eviction (which is what this code refers to) with abandonment.

In hindsight it would have been so easy to avoid all of this by simply notifying management that you moving to Florida to care for father. Instead, you simply left management to guess why you were no longer living there but hadn't moved you items out.

Gail

Thanks for replying.

I did not move to Florida, and I did not move out of my house.

I pay $900 in rent a month, and I paid Aug. rent.

Now, can they still do this to me? I didn't think I had to tell them when I was going to be gone for a little while, since I pay my rent.

In your first statement you write "my family and I moved in with him" (your father), "in order to take care of him". Even in that posting it's implied that yes, you did move to Florida.

It does appear that management made the legal effort to notify you regarding the matter of your abandoning the property. Since they did not have your fathers address...and especially since your apartment had flooded (requiring repairs to the damage done to it from the flooding) when their notices received no response, they assumed you had abandoned both the apartment and your property.

Did you contact them at all when you returned regarding the flooding issue?

Gail

Quote:

---

Quoting gail in georgia

---

In your first statement you write "my family and I moved in with him" (your father), "in order to take care of him". Even in that posting it's implied that yes, you did move to Florida.

It does appear that management made the legal effort to notify you regarding the matter of your abandoning the property. Since they did not have your fathers address...and especially since your apartment had flooded (requiring repairs to the damage done to it from the flooding) when their notices received no response, they assumed you had abandoned both the apartment and your property.

Did you contact them at all when you returned regarding the flooding issue?

Gail

---

I think that the landlord handled it badly. The OP could have easily been out of town for a summer vacation when the landlord left the letter on the door. If the rent is paid, the utilities are on, and the person's belongings are in the unit, its a no brainer that it has not been abandoned.

Regardless of how landlord handled it, as long as they followed the guidelines they have established it is legal. Interesting to have HUD housing where the tenant is paying $900 out of pocket per month. I suspect the rent is $900 and HUD pays a portion of that.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, my father moved back from Florida, so I could take care of him.

I did not contact them about the flood, because it was already cleaned. I pay the full rent, my housing is not subsidized at all. I just happen to live in a place where it is run by HUD. I make to much money to get a cut on rent.

I didn't think I had to tell them I wasn't going to be there for a little while, its none of their business, since I pay rent.

In the ORC it states they have to hold my items for 30 days. No matter what is in the actual lease, it cannot undermine the ORC, correct?