Repo Man: What to Do When Repo Man Comes Calling
by Richard Marmor, Esq.
AZSA Legal & Legislative Chair
So there’s this tough-looking guy at your counter demanding that you confirm that somebody is a tenant at your facility, and if he is, that you surrender some piece of property allegedly stored in the unit. He may even waive some legal-looking papers at you. What do you do?
As to confirming the identity of a tenant, many managers seem to believe that they have some duty of confidentiality. Unless your lease specifically promises that you will protect the identity of your tenants – I’ve never seen one that does – you have no such duty. What you are really being asked is about entries from your own rent roll. Those are your records. You are free to disclose – or not – information from your records, depending upon your company policy.
Obviously, some common sense should be applied here. If it’s the police inquiring, confirm whether or not someone is a tenant at your facility. There is no reason not to cooperate. If it’s a spouse (and you’re reasonably satisfied that it is the spouse), I would also cooperate. After all, if there is an estate issue or a family fight brewing, that could enable the person to then obtain an appropriate court order, directing you. On the other hand, if it’s anyone else asking, you actually have no idea who they really are nor what their real motive is. For example, are they thieves shopping for a good target?
Identities aside, what about surrendering unit contents to a repo man? It’s not a question of whether you should or shouldn’t, you can’t. You have no right or authority to touch a tenant’s property. Even though we are sometimes called “mini-warehouses,” that’s just a nickname for our business. A “warehouseman” is someone specially recognized in the law who has custody of their customer’s property. That’s not you. You are a landlord; your business is renting space. You do not have care, custody or control over tenants’ contents. Simply put: they’re not yours to surrender.
But the guy seems so authoritative, and there are those papers he’s waiving.... There are a couple of TV shows that feature the exploits of repo men. As a former pilot, I particularly like the show where they try to repossess airplanes. The operable word there is try. You’ll see that in every episode: the repo guy is desperate to get the property because if he does, he earns a big fee, but if he fails, he gets nothing. Think about it. If he had a court order, there would be no risk of failure. He would always get the property. The property holder would be under order of court to surrender it. That’s not the case, though. What those papers really do is to clarify that if he succeeds in getting his hands on the property, he is not doing so as a thief, so he shouldn’t be arrested.
Two final observations: First, if you are presented with an actual order of court that names your facility and directs you to surrender property, that’s a different story. Allow access to the property. As noted, repo men generally do not have such court orders.
Second, repo men are generally agents in the employ of lienholders, usually lenders who financed tenant’s purchase of the property, which lender is now engaged in trying to foreclose his lien. If and when the tenant defaults and you put him/her into your pre-auction process, your duties to any such prior lienholder are spelled out in detail in our lien statute, beginning with notice to them. That lienholder’s ensuing rights are also spelled out there.*
Bottom line: Don’t let a repo guy intimidate you.
[This article deals with a law related subject at a general level and I not intended for you to rely on. You should consult a lawyer before making a final decision in a situation involving any legal issue.]
Richard Marmor has been in the self-storage industry for over 30 years, as a facility owner and consultant. He was the founding president of AZSA and is its lobbyist at the Arizona Legislature, where he authored many of the self-storage industry’s laws. An attorney, Richard also created most of AZSA’s forms; he is a regular speaker at AZSA educational workshops around the state; and his articles appear regularly in the AZSA newsletter and website.
* Shameless plug: I detail all that in my book Arizona Self-Storage Statutes Commentated beginning on page 28, available from AZSA at 602-718-4374