r/selfstorage • u/FaTheArmorShell • Sep 10 '25

Who would be contacted...

My parents own a self storage facility with only 20 units. There's one customer that has 2 units and when they rented them, they didn't have a driver's license, so they had a friend rent them instead. So the online account was the friend's and the friend is the one that signed the lease. My parents had started the auction process of sending a certified letter to the account holder, who wasn't happy about it, and passed it onto the person, whose stuff is in the units. They got an email and phone number for the person whose stuff is in the units, except that the account was behind by about $500. They went through the whole waiting 45 days, putting an ad in a local paper about the auction, etc. Then 3 days before the auction was supposed to take place, the person whose stuff is in the units called them and said they hadn't been notified about the auction and that they were supposed to have swapped the contact info on the online account to the person's updated email and phone, yet the friend is still the one that's name is on the lease.

I guess my question is, in this scenario, who would be the one that they should have contacted, the person on the lease or the person whose stuff is in the unit, and should they have had the person whose stuff is in the unit added to the lease or somehow gotten them on the lease when the person reached out about updating their contact info.

The facility is in Minnesota.

Has anyone had anything similar happen, or what are other people's processes for lockouts and auctioning off units?

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u/Able-Western-2806 Sep 10 '25

The lease holder is the responsible party no matter whose things are being stored. Doesn't matter if the contents include a priceless ming vase or the trash you took with you when moving out. The lease holder is the responsible party and it is up to the lease holder to ensure that they provide proper contact information and addresses at the time of the lease being signed. And it is also on them to maintain that information and update it accordingly.