Ask Habitat: What's a Co-op's Liability if My Storage-Bin Items Are Damaged?

HABITAT ANSWERS: As an amenity for residents, many co-op and  condo buildings make storage lockers available for a fee, usually monthly and generally for less than outside storage companies might charge. In most cases, they are located in the basement. You have a key to a locker, and optimally, the storage area as a whole is also locked. Sometimes a  board will outsource management of its storage room to an outside company, similar to the way many buildings contract-out for their laundry-room services.

A storage-room licensing agreement, usually drawn up by the co-op or condo board's attorney, is a document between the board and the shareholder / unit-owner who rents the space. If your building has contracted-out the administration of the storage room, the outside company typically has a licensing agreement of its own with residents, which the board has reviewed and approved.

In most cases, however, the board will neither call nor consider your licensing agreement "a lease," which grants certain rights under the law. There is a more limited right with a license agreement. Among other things, a licensing agreement is revocable; were it to be a lease, a board would have to through landlord-tenant court to revoke it.

In most cases, your storage-

bin licensing agreement is 

NOT "a lease," which grants 

certain rights under the law.

This licensing agreement regulates what can and cannot be stored in your storage space. That means, in typical language, that you may not store a living creature or organism, or any dead animal; gasoline, oil or oil-based paints, fuel, grease or flammable chemicals; corrosive, toxic or hazardous materials or waste; asbestos; construction debris; new or used batteries; weapons or ammunition; anything with a fuel tank; liquid propane tanks, oxygen tanks or similar containers; and food, fertilizers, pesticide or items that are wet and could mildew.

A typical agreement will also prohibit lodging or sleeping in a storage area; cooking in one; or holding meetings, parties or other gatherings there. The agreement will also likely define the hours that you can gain access.

In terms of liability, the agreement will likely contain a warning such as: "All property is stored at tenant's sole risk. Lessor is not responsible for damage or loss to person or property caused by fire, smoke, water, weather, vermin, insects, interruption of utilities, unexplained disappearance, negligence of lessor or lessor's agents, or any other cause, including theft and criminal acts of others." You'll have to compare your co-op's agreement with those of a commercial storage facility and judge for yourself if the monthly savings are worth it, particularly if you're storing something valuable.

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