n an industry as large and diverse as self-storage, it can be challenging to fully grasp the impact of the industry’s proactive legislative efforts.
As you read in the August legislative edition of the SSA Magazine, the SSA and affiliated state associations rely heavily on member feedback when crafting our proactive agenda. When we are successful, we use many channels, including this magazine, the SSA Magazine Weekly email, state and regional conferences, and our annual legislative report, to communicate with members about positive legislative updates.
Where the breakdown can occur, however, is with the feedback loop after the statutory amendments take effect. Are members implementing the changes into their procedures? How much have they saved in time and expense? What other legislative changes would improve their operations? Et cetera.
So, I was heartened recently to speak with several members who are particularly excited about two new additions to the SSA’s legislative priorities.
The first addition provides a self-help remedy for resolving non-monetary defaults. Prior to this year, the self-storage laws in every state only provided a self-help remedy for handling monetary defaults. The laws failed to provide direction to operators when a tenant is paying but breaches another requirement of the rental agreement, for example, living in the space, storing illegal property, or harming other tenants or facility employees.
In the absence of statutory guidance, operators were forced either to rely exclusively on the terms of their rental agreements or pursue a court-ordered eviction. The first option left operators with uncertainty while the second was costly and potentially time-consuming.
So far, laws adding a self-help remedy for resolving non-monetary defaults have taken effect in Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, and Utah. (An existing law in Nebraska has been in place for more than 30 years.) Laws in California and Illinois take effect on Jan. 1, 2025. Although the timelines and other details differ between the laws, they all provide operators with the right to sell property that a tenant fails to remove following a termination or non-renewal of a rental agreement.
The second addition addresses another common problem for storage operators. Every operator that has amended their rental agreement knows the struggle with getting tenants—even the drama-free ones—to sign the amended agreement.
Therefore, your industry associations pursued changes to state self-storage laws to provide for the enforceability of unsigned rental agreements. These changes eliminate the uncertainty of whether an operator can, or a court will, consider a tenant bound to an unsigned agreement. Again, the details differ from state to state, but laws have already taken effect in the four states listed above and Virginia. And, yet again, these provisions take effect in California and Illinois on Jan. 1, 2025.
To ensure that you are making the most of these additions, the SSA’s legal and legislative team has prepared a memo explaining each new state law in detail. You can access this memo by logging into the members-only portion of the SSA’s website.
Finally, I would love to hear your feedback on these additions and any other changes that would help you to operate better. You can reach me at jdoherty@selfstorage.org.