Self-service storage facilities: lien notices: email.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill does not specify what happens if an occupant does not agree to receive lien notices by email.

Self-service storage facilities: lien notices by email

This law changes how self-storage facility owners can prove that they sent and occupants received lien notices via email.

What This Bill Does

• Allows self-storage facility owners to send lien notices to occupants by email if the rental agreement states this is okay and the occupant agrees in writing.
• Requires evidence showing the occupant downloaded, printed, viewed, opened, or otherwise acknowledged receipt of the lien notice sent by email.

Who It Names or Affects

• Self-storage facility owners
• Occupants who rent storage spaces

Terms To Know

lien notice

A warning sent by a self-storage facility owner to an occupant when unpaid rent or charges reach 14 days, giving the occupant time to pay before losing access to their storage space.

occupant

The person who rents and uses a storage unit at a self-service storage facility.

Limits and Unknowns

• Does not specify what happens if an occupant does not agree to receive lien notices by email.
• Does not provide details on how owners must prove that occupants have received the notice.
• The law's effective date is not provided in the official summary.

Official Summary Text

AB 498, Michelle Rodriguez.
Self-service storage facilities: lien notices: email.
Existing law, the California Self-Storage Facility Act, authorizes a self-storage facility owner to terminate the right of an occupant to the use of a storage space if rent or other charges due remain unpaid for 14 consecutive days by sending a lien notice and the total sum due has not been paid by the termination date specified in the preliminary lien notice, in accordance with specified procedures. Existing law authorizes an owner to send lien notices to the occupant by email if the rental agreement states that lien notices may be sent by email and the occupant provides a written signature on the rental agreement consenting to receive lien notices by email. Existing law specifies the ways an owner may demonstrate actual delivery and receipt of the lien notices sent by email, including by posting the document on the owner’s secure internet website and there is evidence demonstrating that the occupant logged onto the licensee’s secure internet website and downloaded, printed, viewed, or otherwise acknowledged receipt of the document.
This bill, instead, would provide that an owner may demonstrate actual delivery and receipt of a lien notice by delivering the document to the occupant’s email address and there is evidence demonstrating that the occupant downloaded, printed, viewed, opened, or otherwise acknowledged receipt of the document.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF