Sorry, I posted this under the Illinois thread by mistake.

I think we did everything legitimately, but I am sure we will get flack on this anyway.

Customer goes delinquent on her SDB payments. We try to send her a delinquency notice, but it is sent back to us "no forwarding address". We do not know any of her family and she has no other accounts. More than 5 years go by. Our contract says we can drill the box in instances of delinquent rents and owner is responsible for drilling costs. So, we drill the box, two officers and the driller present. The two of us inventory the box, with a separate employee nearby to notorize our paperwork. Inside we find envelopes. Upon opening one of the evelopes, we find her will, and also find she has remarried and changed her name and address, neither of which was reported to us. When I checked the white pages, it looks like she still lives there.

Now, we are going to try and contact her at this new address so she can get her stuff (and pay for the drilling). She is probably going to go ballistic that we opened the box and her will, but without doing so, we would not have known about the name and address change.

Any ideas how to smooth this rough situation?

Does your lease have a clause indicating that she had an obligation to keep her address information current with the bank?

Yes it does. In fact, everything we have done and charged is within the signed lease agreement. That doesn't mean she still won't come at us with claws bared!

Nan - I've always found that the best way to calm an irate customer is hit them over the head with the same safe deposit box you've just drilled. generally, after 2-3 hits, they comply!!!