Bossnass

I'm in the process of getting out of a lease. I rented/leased a shack on the beach of a campground and started a little boat rental operation. I'm now pulling my operation out and things are getting a little ugly with the campground owners (but that is another issue altogether). I'm not leaving under the best of terms; they are new managers who have slowly sqashed my operation over the last three years. When I gave them an ultimatum about leaving with my boats, they thought I was bluffing. I wasn't.

I gave my notice mid-March that I wouldn't be coming back, and they sent me notice today that I had to have everything cleared out by April 30th.
This includes all my small boats, equipmen, etc, and was expected. I'm on a tight schedule, but I've already made most the arrangements I need to move things out on the evening of the 29th and the 30th. The sticking point in 'Leasehold Improvments' that they insist must stay. The lease doesn't specify anything either way, and was drawn up and signed in better times with the previous campground owner/manager.

I'm not about to take the light fixtures. I'll even leave the lightbulbs. If I was leaving an apartment or selling a house, I would probably leave anything that was screwed down. But I want to clean the shack out. When I describe it as a shack, that is not an inaccurate term. It has power and it has a phone line. Of course, when I needed the phone line (for interact/credit cards), it was a problem to get. They did pay for the cable, but I dug the trench and made all the connections (into the campground network). I was broken into early on and installed removable bars in the windows. I put up storage shelves (standard rack style). And I built a counter/desk.

The counter is coming either way, it isn't nailed down and I can unwire the telephone line. Am I obligated to leave the bars and the shelves? There would be screwholes, but the interior paneling in the shack was salvaged from another building- there were many holes to begin with. If I should/must leave the bars and the shelves, is it too petty and immature to just leave the shelf racks (take the actual shelves, leave the vertical mounting bars on the wall) and to not give them the keys to the bars? I don't mean to be too childish, but I already have racks in (my dad's) shop for the shelves. And they refused to pay for the bars in anyway, so I don't think I should give them away now. I don't honestly have a use for the counter, but I had to invest a days work and a couple hundred dollars in material when I built it.

hrdwareguy

I think a lot of it depends on state law. In Oklahoma, any leasehold improvements can be removed by the outgoing tenant. The rental property must be left in the at least the same condition it was in. That means the screen doors I put up I could take with me as long as I patched the holes.

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DDDDave

Hope this response isn't too late.

Typically, yes, 'leasehold improvements' become the proiperty of the landlord upon your vacating the premises. Typically that means anything that requires a tool to remove. Citing your example - the shelves themselves could be taken but the vertical supports could not. You could take the lightbulbs (they don't require a tool) but the fixtures could not. The counter would require a tool to disassemble so it must stay. Ditto for the window bars.

My only advice is to try and take the high road and don't burn your bridges. No doubt people will ask 'Where is that nice guy who ran the beach rentals?' You want them to say nice things and not 'He left and took a bunch of our stuff'.

I would look at it as their loss and your gain that you are leaving and consider yourself lucky that they weren't complete asshats about it. (even if they were )

Good Luck.

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Bossnass

Thanks for the reply Dave.

Yeah, they are being rather difficult about the whole affair. I'm confident that they
will be much worse off without me. I expect very few people will be left wondering why I left, many of the seasonals have already packed up and few of the locals give them any business anymore.

But the counter isn't nailed down and can be lifted out without disassembling it and my dad has apparently made room in his shop for it. They will need to sell fuel, as I did. So if they are willing to buy out my 2-stroke oil inventory, I may be persuaded to leave the shelves.

The security window thing bugs me though, since they didn't seem to care much about the theft and they refused to help me upgrade the security. Eight lagbolts wouldn't be quick to remove and might leave a bit of a hole though.

cj2112

take the counter, the shelves and brackets but leave the shelf standards and the bars on the windows, yes I know you payed for those things, but leave them anyways.