Your Belongings During and After Eviction

What happens to your belongings after an eviction lockout depends on your state. In California you can reclaim them within 15 days after the landlord gets possession by paying reasonable storage costs, Massachusetts has the officer store them in a licensed warehouse that cannot sell them for 6 months, and Washington requires the landlord to store them only if you ask in writing within 3 days after the sheriff serves the writ (the court's removal order). Florida lets the landlord move everything to the property line, and neither the landlord nor the sheriff is responsible for it after that. Where storage is required, the charges to reclaim your belongings depend on state law: Massachusetts requires lawful storage fees, with reimbursement of the landlord's moving costs handled separately.

What happens to your things on lockout day

The sheriff, constable, or marshal removes everyone from the home and gives the landlord possession. What happens to your property next depends on the state:

• Texas: The officer has your belongings placed outside near the unit, but not blocking a public sidewalk, passageway, or street, and not while it is raining, sleeting, or snowing. The officer can instead hire a bonded or insured warehouse to move and store them, but cannot make the landlord store them. If a warehouse is used, you can take back any item free of charge while its crew is still at your home.
• Massachusetts: The officer stores your property with a licensed public warehouse within 20 miles of the home, or with a licensed facility you pick within the same 20-mile radius if you tell the officer in writing at or before the removal. You get a receipt describing what was taken. The landlord pays the moving cost up front and can charge it back to you.
• Maryland: The landlord's required notice of the eviction date warns that you could lose everything left inside the home and that local rules on disposing of belongings vary.

Before the lockout date, move or pack identity documents, medications, and anything you cannot replace first, and take photos or video of what you have to leave. To see how much notice you get before the officer comes, read what happens after an eviction judgment.

How long your belongings must be kept

In Texas, the essentials you can redeem during the first 30 days include clothing, beds and bedding, kitchen furniture and utensils, food, medicine and medical supplies, school books, family pictures, tools of your trade, children's toys, one car and one truck, and cash. The warehouse cannot make you pay the charges for your other belongings before it releases these.

If you do not reclaim your property in time:

• California: It is sold at a public sale after a newspaper notice, unless the landlord reasonably believes everything is worth less than $700 in total, in which case it can keep or dispose of it. You can bid at the sale. Money left after storage, advertising, and sale costs goes to the county, and you can claim it within one year.
• Massachusetts: The warehouse can auction the property after the waiting period and keep what it is owed in storage fees. You can buy back items at the auction, and the warehouse must hold the remaining proceeds for you.
• New Jersey: The landlord can sell the property, or dispose of it if it is worth too little to cover storage and sale costs. From sale money, it can deduct the costs of notice, storage, and sale, plus unpaid rent your security deposit did not cover, and must send you the rest with an itemized accounting.
• Washington: The landlord can use sale money only for moving and storage costs and must hold anything extra for you for one year. If everything is worth $250 or less, it cannot sell or throw out personal papers, family pictures, or keepsakes.

How to get your belongings back

1. Find your deadline. In California, the writ of possession states the 15-day claim period. In Washington, the sheriff's notice explains the 3-day storage request. In Massachusetts, the warehouse must send you a receipt within 7 days after the removal that lists its rates and how to reclaim your property. In New Jersey, check that the landlord's deadline for ordinary belongings allows at least 30 days after notice delivery or 33 days after mailing, whichever comes first.
2. Respond in writing before the deadline, and keep proof of delivery. In Washington, use the storage request form the sheriff serves with the writ.
3. Ask for the charges in writing and compare them with the limits above. A Massachusetts warehouse cannot add docking, labor, administrative, or minimum fees, or charge for any time beyond actual storage.
4. Take essentials first if you cannot pay for everything, using the Texas 30-day rule or the free Massachusetts visit.
5. Bring ID, help, and a vehicle, and check items against the receipt or inventory before you leave.

If your landlord throws out or keeps your belongings

If the landlord changed the locks or removed your things without a court order, see self-help eviction: what it is and why it's illegal. If there was a court order but the landlord or warehouse broke the storage rules, these remedies apply:

• New Jersey: A landlord that takes and keeps your property without following the state's abandoned property law cannot charge you for storage and can owe you up to twice your actual damages.
• Texas: Before any sale, you can sue in the justice court that issued the writ to recover essentials that were not returned after you asked and paid, or to challenge unreasonable moving or storage charges. The winner recovers actual damages, attorney's fees, and court costs, plus the property or its value if it was sold.
• Massachusetts: You can ask the court that heard the eviction for damages or an order, and a violation of the storage rules also violates the state consumer protection law.
• Maryland: If a court finds the landlord did not give the required notice of the eviction date, you can recover actual damages, attorney's fees and costs, and an order to get back your home or your property.

Keep photos, the inventory or receipt, copies of your written requests, and receipts for anything you paid; they are your evidence. If you moved out before any court order and left things behind, see the rules on abandoned rentals and belongings. For the full sequence from notice to lockout, see how long the eviction process takes by state.