North Carolina Allows Online Lien Sales Beginning October 2013

As of October 2013, North Carolina has joined the growing list of states whose legislature allows lien sales to be held over the Internet.

Until now, storage auction facility owners were required to follow an outdated law that mandated all sales be made in person through live storage auctions. Now, with Governor Pat McCrory signing the bill into law, this has changed.

Aside from allowing storage facilities to hold lien auctions online, the bill allows several important changes in the way storage facilities run their business:

• Storage operators can now email delinquent tenants as part of the lien sale notification process

• Notices of lien auctions can be posted in local media other than the newspaper

• The late fees assessed to delinquent tenants have been revamped; they are now 15% or $15, whichever is higher, after a unit has gone five days delinquent

• Watercraft and RV’s that have been abandoned for more than 60 days can be towed away

The law, which came into effect October 1^st, had been in the works since March. Before the law went into effect, storage facilities were required to publish newspaper notices of a public sale at least five days before the auction; under the new law, a notice is still required, but it can be posted online or through other public means.

Under the new law, a storage auction is considered “viable” as long as it has three or more bidders who arrive at the designated time and place. This includes auctions held online through virtual auction sites like OnlineStorageAuctions.com.

For states that have not yet updated their legislature to allow online storage unit  auctions, storage facility managers can still utilize a virtual auction site in conjunction with their live auctions. As long as the sale is open for bidding at an advertised time and place, bidding can be started online.

This works as a good compromise until the laws are updated in other states.

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