What can a landlord do with a tenant’s belongings left behind in Pennsylvania?

In Pennsylvania, a landlord must mail the tenant written notice of their rights before removing or disposing of property left behind, and the tenant has ten days from the postmark to retrieve it or ask that it be stored for up to thirty days at the tenant’s cost. Property may be deemed abandoned only in the situations the statute lists, such as the tenant vacating after a written lease ends, an executed eviction order, or the tenant vacating without communicating an intent to return with rent more than fifteen days past due and the landlord having posted notice of the tenant’s rights. The notice goes by first class mail to the leased premises and to any forwarding or emergency address the tenant gave, in substantially the form the statute sets out. The landlord must exercise ordinary care with the property and make it reasonably available for retrieval. Where the landlord knows of a protection from abuse order for the tenant or the tenant’s immediate family after an eviction order is executed, the landlord may not dispose of the property for thirty days from the date of the notice. Except for that protection from abuse rule, the terms of a written lease control if they conflict with the section. A landlord that violates the section is subject to treble damages, reasonable attorney fees and court costs. The section does not apply where the tenant has died; the decedents’ estates law governs instead. This is 68 P.S. § 250.505a.

WhatPennsylvania
Belongings left behindMail notice, then hold 10 days (30 if asked)
What the statute requires firstNotice, a waiting period or storage before disposal

What the statute says

“Prior to removing or disposing of abandoned property, the landlord must provide written notice of the tenant’s rights regarding the property. The tenant shall have ten days from the postmark date of the notice to retrieve the property …”

Quoted word for word from the section’s text.

Source

68 P.S. § 250.505a

Read the statute in the Pennsylvania Statutes (Pennsylvania General Assembly): palegis.us.

Checked against the statute on November 15, 2026.

This is a summary of a published statute, not legal advice. Rules change, local ordinances can add to them, and the terms of a specific lease may differ. Check the citation and speak to a lawyer before acting.

How Seayora uses this rule

Seayora keeps a lease’s end date and every notice sent through it, with the date it went out, in the lease record — so the dates a rule like this one counts from are on file rather than remembered.

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