My lease states; If Tenant abandoned

[Cameron Riley]

- Legal lease from legit online source

- Section states, “ If Tenant Abandons home for 15 days or more and is delinquent in rent... owner can repossess home “

- Is repossessing a home legally allowed or does that fall under a “ self eviction? “

- Situation: Tenant went to jail for 17 days but had never spoken about his charge, he was arrested for doing something illegal that day. However, 1 week prior to his arrest , he had voiced verbally and over text that he was no longer going to be paying me rent...

[Kyle J.]

The issue I see is that the tenant didn’t really voluntarily abandon the property.  He was arrested for a crime that he may or may not have committed. (I’m assuming he hasn’t gone to court yet and been convicted.) 

Abandonment often isn’t clearly defined but can be inferred by certain things like neighbors witnessing the tenant moving all of their belongings out of the property, the property being completely vacant, utilities being shut off, etc. It doesn’t sound like that’s the case here since you’re talking about having to put his stuff in storage. 

Personally, if it were me, I would not consider this abandonment, just a failure to pay rent, which is handled differently (i.e. pay or quit notice followed by an eviction). 

I would consult a landlord-tenant attorney in your state before doing anything to be sure though.