Should your condo association require a move-in, move-out fee?
By: Shamontiel L. Vaughn
Tags: Landlords, Tenants, Property Management, Condominiums, Condo Board Association

Although I’d spent about one thousand dollars on this couch, this wasn’t really anybody’s fault. I purchased the couch at a time that I had minimal interest in moving and had it out with the neighbors. Once the lease wasn’t renewed, I had no choice but to find a new place to go — after living in this apartment for eight years. Still though, I wouldn’t have batted an eye if I’d have had to pay for move-in damages trying to get my couch up the steps.

How COVID-19 is changing the way new residents move

In my childhood neighborhood, as soon as furniture was left outside, it would be gone in a matter of hours. Sometimes it would be snatched up so fast by junk dealers, collectors and passersby to the point where you’d wonder whether you remembered to sit it outside in the first place. If you don’t live in one of those neighborhoods where recycling and repurposing are common, property owners may end up with a dumpster area that looks like an episode of “Sanford and Son.” As charming as Fred Sanford is, nothing brings the property value down (besides bad maintenance) quite like a building loaded with junk.

And in a COVID-19 environment where waste management companies are notifying customers that they no longer pick up any kind of loose furniture or electronics, you cannot always count on trash pickup day to do the job. So that leaves property managers and condo boards with a few options — pay the special pickup rate for waste management companies to get rid of abandoned furniture, pay a junk truck company to haul it away or try your luck on recycling/repurposing sites such as Craigslist or Freecycle.

Giveaways on Craigslist, Freecycle: With Craigslist or Freecycle, you are more likely to find homeowners and tenants who actually want the leftover furniture and/or household supplies. But if you’re trying to socially isolate, posting items on these sites can put you at risk of interacting with a lot of strangers all at once. Freecycle doesn’t allow curbside pickups, so you’d be stuck with leaving furniture in your home or the condo board would have to wait it out by sticking leftover junk in the basement. (Put a time limit on this though because you don’t want a bunch of owners and tenants all leaving their junk all over the basement for weeks, claiming it’s going into storage or being sold online or a yard sale for a vague amount of time.) Whether you give it away for free or for a reasonable price, that’s up to the owner of the items. But this is an easier and cheaper way to do it versus pickups. Just make sure to wear gloves and masks, and keep a six-foot distance.

I did not think I could drive a U-Haul truck, but my brother convinced me I could and so I did. (Photo credit: Shamontiel L. Vaughn)

Garbage pickup or junk truck pickup: It is completely unfair for owners to be left footing the bill for one tenant moving out. If condo associations don’t already charge a move-in/move-out fee, then the owner of that unit or the tenant renting that space should be required to pay for any leftover furniture that needs a special pickup. Or, pay the movers to deliver it to a charitable organization. (Note: Some charitable organizations will only take gently used to almost-new furniture.) But whatever you do, don’t just let tenants or owners get in the habit of leaving half their home in your parking lot — free of charge. Once one person sees (s)he can do it, this will become a pattern.

Of course, tenants and owners don’t always do this maliciously. As stated above, in my childhood home, leaving furniture in the alley was the equivalent of giving it away in less than 24 hours. In some neighborhoods though, this isn’t always the case. Know where you live to understand how quickly that furniture will go. And in COVID-19 times, people just aren’t as open to taking someone’s leftover furniture in. Never mind bedbug or roach risks; now residents have to disinfect everything to avoid adding onto 12.99 million people infected with this virus sweeping the United States (and even more worldwide).

Should a move-in/move-out fee be mandatory?

On the surface, it would make sense to just charge the fee so then tenants and/or owners who are leaving or coming can freely separate what they want and what they don’t want. They’ve already paid for pickup so they don’t have to worry about someone coming out to wag a finger at them for leftover items. But how unfair is it for tenants or owners who have either given away leftover items or sold them to have to pay this same fee? Unless they damaged the steps, the doors or some other communal or internal area in the process, this added expense is unnecessary.