When Storms Strike: Key Takeaways to Help You Prepare
by Taressa Dominguez

When disasters strike or hurdles arise, they can be unpredictable. And though you may not know the timing or extent of impact, you can prepare your facility and staff to tackle whatever comes at them by creating a plan of action that is precise enough that your staff and tenants know what to do and expect, but is also flexible enough to... 

Time Management for Managers
by John Manes

Self storage may present some unique challenges from time to time, but the principles of time management remain the same as in any other industry and those principles are presented clearly in the late Stephen Covey’s ‘Four Quadrants of Time Management’. Under Covey’s four quadrants, any activity is either urgent or not urgent, important or not important...

Bid Farewell to 2020 With a 20% Discount

The holidays are around the corner and soon it will be time to bid farewell to 2020, possibly the strangest year in recent history. So to celebrate, we're offering a 20% discount on select TSSA products.

From now until the end of the year, members will get 20% off the following items:

  • Post-Conference 2020 Pass
  • 2020 Legal Seminar Recording
  • Operations Manual
  • Self-Storage Made Easy Brochure

Use the code DISCOUNT20 to apply the discount in your shopping cart.

Membership Tip
From the Desk of Holly Barr,
Director of Membership & Engagement

This month, we're spotlighting the Operations/Best Practices section of
TSSA's Resource Library.

Watch this short video to learn about the variety of resources available to members.

TSSA e-Lease Additional Forms

We recently released additional TSSA forms as part of the e-Lease subscription package at no additional cost to subscribers. The forms have been formatted specifically to work within your management software program.

Please note: Adding these forms to your management software is optional. As always, you can continue to access these and other TSSA non-lease forms as fillable PDFs in the Members Only section of the website.

Not subscribed to the TSSA e-Lease yet?
Click here to learn more.
Question: After sending a late notice to a tenant, he notified us that he moved out of the unit and left the lock on. When we cut the lock, we saw that he left some items in the unit. Since he notified us that he moved out, can we consider the unit abandoned, or do we have to foreclose?

Answer: This may be a case for abandonment if it meets the requisites of "abandonment" under Paragraph 26 of the TSSA lease. One way that a unit can be considered abandoned under Paragraph 26 is if 1) the tenant hasn’t paid rent, 2) the lock has been removed by someone other than the Lessor or has been removed by the Lessor when exercising a seizure of the unit’s contents, AND 3) the tenant’s space contains nothing of value to the ordinary person. If the tenant is delinquent, and you have a signed TSSA lease, you could overlock the unit and remove the tenant’s lock. Then, if the space contains nothing of value to the ordinary person, you have satisfied one of the definitions of "abandonment" in Paragraph 26 and may enter, remove, and dispose of all of the contents. For added security, you would be well advised to send the tenant a Notice of Abandonment (Form MISC-3) which can be found in the Members Only section of txssa.org. You will check the second box (certifying that the tenant is delinquent in rent, the facility removed the tenant’s lock when exercising a statutory seizure, and the space contained nothing of value to the ordinary person). With this notice, you put the tenant on notice that if he has not notified you by a certain date indicating the contents are not abandoned, the contents will be considered to be abandoned, and the facility will dispose of them.

Please note: You must log in to your account at txssa.org to view hundreds of questions and answers in the Ask the Experts database.