Foreclosure: Preventing a Problem

By Richard Marmor, Esq.
AZSA Legal & Legislative Chair 

A recent inquiry suggests that some things bear repeating.  According to this manager, some years ago a previous manager had changed the name of a tenant in the records from A to B, although nothing appeared in the files to document the change. What’s more, the copy of the tenant’s driver’s license in the file still showed the tenant under the name A. This manager then took it upon herself to change the tenant’s name in the records back to A. Now the tenant is in default and is destined for auction. What, she asked, should she do?

In the first instance, never change the name or address of a tenant without having something in writing documenting the change in the tenant’s data.1  That documentation should then become part of the tenant’s file.  So the first name change from A to B by the previous manager may or may not have been justified. We have no way of knowing since nothing appears in the file.

Does that justify the current manager changing the tenant’s name in the records back to A? Probably not.  For one thing, she has nothing in writing to document such a change now. For another, as she noted, the original name change by the previous manager took place years ago. It can be argued that the tenant’s on-going relationship with the facility for years under the name B ratifies that as the tenant’s correct information. 

In the larger scheme of things, the whole issue doesn’t become critical until there is a default and the operator has to begin some kind of legal action against the tenant, which includes foreclosing the operator’s storage lien, as now. What should the current manager do?

There is only one safe answer: duplicate all notices and send them at the times and in the same manner to both A and B, even if the street address is identical. 

Remember Marmor’s “Third Rule of Self-Storage”: You cannot give too much notice, but you can give too little. 

Richard Marmor, Esq. is a self-storage consultant, facility owner and former facility operator in the Phoenix area.  He is also the founding President and current member of the Board of Directors of the Arizona Self-Storage Association, serving as Chair of the Legal and Legislative Committee. 

Source: Behind Closed Doors, AZSA Newsletter Archives