questions & answers

Question: My boyfriend & I moved in together. Well he left 10 days ago & yesterday he came & got some stuff, I messaged him to see if he was coming back for anything else well I got no response then This morning he semt a text to the landlord & told him he had moved out & actually he had been gone for awhile!! So if he comes back can I tell him to go & the stuff is mine since he told the landlord he moved out?

Answer: As a general rule, where two tenants are renting a dwelling together, one tenant leaving – whether permanently or temporarily – does not automatically make that tenant’s personal belongings the property of remaining tenant. There are rules about what counts as “abandonment” under the law and how the parties must communicate with each other about what will happen to the property. Equally important to recognize is that if both tenants were named in the rental agreement, then both tenants continue to exercise all of their original rights and responsibilities unless and until the agreement is altered or expires. One tenant texting the landlord does not formally alter the rental agreement.