What if you own a judgment and you cannot find any obvious available assets belonging to your judgment debtor; yet they seem to live in a nice place and have a nice car, and they lease a storage unit? Can you have a Sheriff levy the contents of that storage unit? Can the contents be sold at auction to help satisfy your judgment? What if you do not know what is inside their storage unit?
This article is my opinion, and not legal advice. I am a judgment referral expert, and am not a lawyer. If you ever need any legal advice or a strategy to use, please contact a lawyer.
Having the Sheriff levy and sell the contents of your judgment debtor's storage unit is not easy or cheap. If you think there is something of value, the way to proceed varies by state, county, and Sheriff/Marshall. One way to discover if your judgment debtor has a leased storage unit is by using a judgment debtor exam. You could ask them to produce their keys, and ask them what each key is for; and/or use document requests to see copies of their bank and/or credit card statements.
A storage unit levy only makes sense if there is something valuable in the storage unit. Complications and financial risks may occur, including your debtor filing for bankruptcy. Also, some of the property in the debtor's unit might be exempt from collection or owned by a third party.
You will need to pay a hefty deposit to the Sheriff, and you will also be responsible for the Sheriff’s costs for daily storage of the contents, which will cost substantially more than renting that storage unit. There is a chance you will be stuck paying the Sheriff's storage fees on items while a debtor is in bankruptcy court, which could drag out the process 90 days or more.
If the debtor's property is locked and only the debtor has the key, a Private Place Order will be required. Private Place Orders are used in home and business locations. Usually, they must specify the item(s) and their location(s) accurately, so that the Sheriff can go to the location(s) and identify the item(s).
The three storage unit levy steps below are based on my previous California experience, and your results will vary:
1) Get a writ of execution from the court for the county where the judgment debtor's storage unit is located.
2) Talk with the workers or the management of the storage unit, and ask them if they will open a storage unit if a Sheriff shows up with a court order to seize the contents of that unit. If the locks are built-in and standard, they might say yes. If so, contact the Sheriff's office in the county where the storage unit is. Find out what paperwork (besides the writ) is required, the costs, and ask them to schedule a date when they can seize the contents of your debtor's storage unit.
If it is a "bring your own lock" storage unit, or the workers cannot or will not open it when the Sheriff arrives; you will need to also get a Private Place Order, to allow the Sheriff to hire someone to break the lock to get into the storage unit.
Tell the Sheriff you are getting a Private Place Order, and get a date estimate from the Sheriff of when they can seize the contents of the storage unit. Then, file an ex-parte motion shortly before the date set by the Sheriff. Contact a lawyer if you do not know how to do this. Bring the writ, your Private Place Order, and your instructions to the Sheriff.
A money and time-saving idea that might work, is to ask the court, as part of your proposed order; for the contents of the storage unit to stay inside the storage unit. That way, the Sheriff can change the lock, and pay the rent until the sale of the items within; using the funds you the judgment creditor, had to deposit with the Sheriff. This would avoid the time and expense of the Sheriff seizing and relocating the contents. However, not every Sheriff will agree to that, some have strict policies about seizing property and placing it in their custody.
3) At the time of the levy, you can be there to see what is in the storage unit, however the Sheriff must take custody of the contents for public auction. If you want something that was levied, at the auction you can credit bid up to the amount on your writ. When there is unpaid rent, storage unit companies usually have a contractual priority lien which outranks a regular execution lien; and at a sale, the facility will get paid first.
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Mark Shapiro of http://www.JudgmentBuy.com - The easiest and fastest free way to find the right expert to buy or recover your judgment.
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