Guides · comparison
This is informational, not legal advice. This page summarises ten state guides we wrote ourselves. Every statute on it can be amended and reinterpreted; verify each requirement against the current official statute for your state and confirm with your own attorney before you act on it.
Not attorney-reviewed. We wrote the underlying guides directly from statute text. None of them, and not this page, has been reviewed by a licensed attorney in any state.
Statutes change — and two of these are moving right now. Ohio S.B. 283 and Michigan House Bill 4711 are both pending as we write; neither is law. New York has bills through the Senate and sitting in the Assembly. This page reflects our reading as written on 12 August 2026, and later amendments will not appear here automatically.
Every state below has an "earliest possible sale" figure. Those figures are not comparable to each other on their own, because the states do not start counting from the same event. Four of these ten start the clock at the tenant's default or rent-due date; six start it when the notice goes out. Georgia's ~60 days and Texas's ~30 days are roughly the same amount of process — Georgia just counts an extra month of front-end default gate that Texas does not have. Georgia's own guide makes that point: measured from the notice going out, it is about 30 days, "the same as Texas and Florida."
Clock starts at the notice Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan. Day 0 is the day the notice is delivered — or, in New York, mailed. Nothing in the count reflects how long the tenant was already behind.
Clock starts at default California, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania. Day 0 is the first missed payment, the rent due date, or the first day of continuous default. These figures include a front-end waiting period before any notice may go out.
Even inside a group the trigger event differs. Texas, Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan count from delivery of the notice; New York counts from mailing; Pennsylvania's demand runs from the date printed on the notice, whenever the occupant actually gets it. Several of our guides add that the statute never defines the moment of delivery precisely, and decline to resolve it.
Compare within a group, not across groups. Comparing Pennsylvania's ~71 days to Ohio's ~26 days without saying that one counts from default and the other from delivery is the single easiest way to misread this table.
Two more things before the numbers. Every figure here is a floor, not a target. Each of our guides says so in its own words, and most of them add that the statute never resolves whether its day counts are inclusive or exclusive — so the theoretical earliest day is not a date any facility should be scheduling a sale for. And where a state guide hedges, this page hedges. Cells marked "not covered" mean our guide for that state does not address the point; they do not mean the state has no rule. Follow the link and read the state page — that is where the detail, the statute cites and the full disclaimers live.
Read left to right: what day 0 means, whether the state makes you wait before you may send anything, how long the notice has to give the tenant, and the earliest a sale can happen. The anchor badge tells you which class of figure the last column is.
| State | Day 0 — what the clock counts from | Wait before the notice may go out | Demand window in the notice | Earliest sale (floor, not target) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TexasProp. Code Ch. 59 | notice Delivery of the Notice of Claim to the tenant. The guide adds that the anchor is itself method-dependent — how "delivered" is measured can shift with mail, e-mail or in person. | None. No statutory minimum delinquency before the Notice of Claim can issue; the rental agreement decides what counts as default. | At least 14 days from delivery of the Notice of Claim. | Roughly day 25–26 on the posting route, day 30 on the publication route. |
| CaliforniaB&P §§ 21700–21716 | default The day rent first goes due and unpaid. | 14 consecutive days of unpaid rent or charges before the first notice can go out. | Two 14-day-minimum windows stack — one per notice, each measured from that notice's mailing. | Around day 49–56 — roughly seven to eight weeks after the first missed payment. |
| FloridaFla. Stat. Ch. 83 pt. III | notice The date the tenant notice is delivered. | None for ordinary goods. No statutory minimum days behind; the rental agreement decides what counts as default. | At least 14 days after delivery. | Roughly day 30 after the notice goes out. On the no-newspaper posting route the guide does not give a day count — it says whether the 15-day publication rule also binds that route "isn't clearly spelled out." |
| GeorgiaO.C.G.A. §§ 10-4-210–218 | default The default date. Georgia's headline clock runs from default, not from the notice — the guide flags this as the main thing to recalibrate coming from Texas or Florida. Under the statute's model lease, default dates back to the rent due date, and that due date is the guide's day 0. | 30 days of continuous default before enforcement can start. | At least 14 days after delivery of the notice. The guide flags a wording gap: the demand runs from delivery, but the statute's presumption is about sending. | Roughly day 60 from the default date — about 30 days measured from the notice going out. The extra month is all front gate. |
| North CarolinaN.C.G.S. §§ 44A-40–46 | default Maturity of the obligation to pay rent — the rent due date set by the rental agreement, not the date any notice goes out. | 15 days of unpaid rent and charges following the rent due date. | No payment demand at all. The occupant and any secured party get 10 days from mailing to demand a judicial hearing on the validity of the lien. Silence waives the hearing right and terminates the tenancy by statute. | Around day 45 from the rent due date on the sequential reading the guide uses. A concurrent reading lands near day 35; the guide expressly declines to resolve which is right. |
| New YorkN.Y. Lien Law § 182 | notice The date the enforcement notice is mailed (or personally delivered) — not a rent-due date. The guide flags that the statute doesn't say whether the clock still runs from mailing when delivery evidence arrives later, and does not resolve it. | None. No statutory minimum delinquency period; default is governed entirely by the occupancy agreement. | Not less than 30 days from the mailing of the notice — a 2019 change from the old 10-days-from-receipt rule. Separately, any interest claimant may bring a special proceeding within 10 days of service, which puts the sale on hold. | Around day 31 reading § 182 literally, or around day 46 on the conservative route that assumes a general publication rule overlays it. The guide calls this its biggest open question and does not pick one. |
| Illinois770 ILCS 95 | notice The date the notice is delivered to the occupant — not a rent-due date. | None. The Act opens at "a claim which has become due" and gives "default" no day count of its own. | At least 14 days after delivery of the notice. | Around day 30 on the publication route, or around day 25 on the posting fallback. |
| OhioOhio Rev. Code Ch. 5322 | notice The date the notice is delivered — not a rent-due date. | None. Enforcement opens at "a claim that has become due"; the rental agreement governs when that happens. | Not less than 10 days after delivery — part of what the Ohio guide calls the shortest overall clock of the states in its series. S.B. 283 would make it 90 days; see below. | About day 26 from notice delivery, on either publication route. The Ohio guide calls this the shortest clock of the states in this series. |
| Pennsylvania12 Pa.C.S. Ch. 56 | default The first day of continuous default. The clock starts at default, then re-anchors at the notice date. | 30 days of continuous default before an action to enforce the lien. Whether sending the notice is itself such an action is unresolved; the guide's conservative reading holds the notice until default day 30. | Not less than 30 days after the date of the notice — Pennsylvania counts from the notice's own date, not from when the occupant receives it. | About day 71 from the first day of default, on the guide's conservative reading — the slowest floor of the states in this series, per that guide. It also says an aggressive reading, if counsel approves it, would save roughly 30 days. |
| MichiganMCL 570.521–570.527 | notice Delivery of the notice, not the date printed on it — the guide says its clocks "run from this presumed-delivery event," presumed on deposit with the USPS or on transmission by e-mail. Michigan's guide labels notice delivery "N0" and reserves "Day 0" for the rent-due default; with no waiting period between the two, its earliest sale is written "≈N30 / D30." | None. No statutory minimum default period; "default" is not defined in the act at all. | Not less than 14 days after delivery of the notice. | About day 30 from notice delivery. |
Every one of these figures is a floor. Most of our guides add that their statute never says whether its day counts run inclusively or exclusively, so the theoretical earliest day is not a date to schedule against — build in a buffer and let counsel set the actual dates.
How many notices the state wants, how they may be delivered, what e-mail costs you, how the sale gets advertised, and what happens when there is no newspaper. The e-mail column is where these statutes differ most sharply: Michigan asks nothing of the lease, New York never accepts e-mail on its own, and Pennsylvania wants three separate lease conditions.
| State | Notices required | Delivery channels | E-mail — conditions | Publication rule | If there is no newspaper | Titled property |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | Two. A Notice of Claim delivered to the tenant, and a Notice of Sale published or posted publicly. | In person, by e-mail, or by verified mail, to the tenant's last known e-mail or postal address. | Only if the rental agreement separately says so, in underlined or conspicuous bold print, and the tenant elected to provide an e-mail address. | Once in each of two consecutive weeks, in a newspaper of general circulation in the county where the facility sits. | Post a copy at the facility and at least five other conspicuous locations nearby. | Separate notice by verified mail to the last known owner and every lienholder recorded on the title, no later than 30 days after the facility takes possession; reclaimable up to the 31st day. |
| California | Two to the tenant — a Preliminary Lien Notice and a Notice of Lien Sale — followed by a published advertisement. | Certified mail, first-class mail with a certificate of mailing, or e-mail. The guide flags that whether these are free-choice or a required order isn't clearly stated. | Only if the lease says lien notices may be e-mailed and the tenant gave a written signature on the lease consenting to it. Missing either one, and you are back to mail. | Once a week for two consecutive weeks, in a newspaper of general circulation in the judicial district where the sale will be held. | Post at least 10 days before the sale in not fewer than six conspicuous places in the neighbourhood of the sale. | Not covered on our California guide — see the guide. |
| Florida | One combined notice. The demand for payment and the notice of sale are the same document. | In person, by e-mail, or by first-class mail with a certificate of mailing — not certified mail. | Permitted, but if the e-mail draws no response, no return receipt and no delivery confirmation, the owner must also send first-class mail with a certificate of mailing before proceeding with the sale. | Once a week for two consecutive weeks, in a newspaper of general circulation in the area where the sale will be held. | Post at least 10 days before the sale in not fewer than three conspicuous places in the neighbourhood. | Motor vehicles and watercraft leave the ordinary timeline: wait 60 days after the obligation matures, then either sell under § 83.806 or have the property towed by a licensed wrecker under Fla. Stat. § 713.78. |
| Georgia | One to the occupant, plus a conditional notice to superior lienholders, plus the published advertisement. No Texas-style split. | Written notice delivered in person, by verified mail, or by e-mail. | Permitted, but if notice of a pending sale draws no nonautomated response and no receipt of delivery, the owner must send notice by verified mail before proceeding with the sale. | Once a week for two consecutive weeks in the county's legal organ — the officially designated legal-notice newspaper, not just any paper; sale no sooner than 15 days after first publication. Since 1 July 2025, non-vehicle property may instead be advertised in any other commercially reasonable manner. | No posting fallback exists. Every Georgia county has a designated legal organ, so the statute never needs one. | A title lienholder outranks the storage lien. A vehicle, trailer or watercraft unpaid 60 days after the obligation matured may be towed in lieu of foreclosing. Vehicles, motorcycles, trailers, watercraft and RVs are excluded from the 2025 commercially-reasonable advertising alternative. |
| North Carolina | Three, for property that is not a motor vehicle, watercraft or trailer. A lien-assertion and hearing-rights notice, a notice of public sale at least 20 days before the sale, and an advertisement at least 5 days before. The three titled/towable types run on separate tracks — see the last column. | Hearing notice by first-class mail, presumed delivered on deposit — not certified, which is easy to conflate with the sale notice. Sale notice by certified mail to a secured party. | Verified e-mail is an option only if the occupant elected e-mail notice in the rental agreement and the address has been verified by some reasonable means as a working address. | Not less than five days before the sale: either a newspaper of general circulation in the county where the sale is held, or any other commercially reasonable manner. | No fallback exists. The two options above have been co-equal since 2013, when the old classified-advertisement fallback was deleted. | Vehicles, watercraft and trailers ride different tracks entirely, and our guide puts all three out of scope. Motor vehicles get a DMV-mediated notice — the lienor notifies the Division of Motor Vehicles, and the DMV, not the lienor, sends the certified-mail return-receipt notice; there the 10-day hearing-demand window runs from receipt, not mailing. Watercraft and trailers sit in a statutory gap: since 2013 there is no enumerated non-judicial notice track for either. A 60-day tow-in-lieu option exists for all three, but its liability shield names motor vehicles only. |
| New York | One combined notice, served on the occupant and on every person known to claim an interest in the goods. No separate lienholder track. | Three routes: personal delivery; registered or certified mail; or verified mail and electronic mail together. | E-mail alone is never valid in New York. | § 182 itself enumerates no publication requirement. Whether a separate, general lien-sale article overlays it is an open question our guide does not resolve. | On the conservative overlay route only: publish weekly for two consecutive weeks, or, absent a newspaper, post in at least six conspicuous places at least ten days before the sale. | Motor vehicles and watercraft are out of scope — § 182 does not mention them, and New York processes vehicle storage liens through a different statute and the DMV. |
| Illinois | One notice to the occupant, containing six required elements. | Three ways: in person, by verified mail, or by electronic mail. | No rental-agreement opt-in required — but e-mail is presumed delivered only when the owner actually receives a receipt of delivery. With no receipt, the notice is presumed delivered when re-sent by verified mail. | Once a week for two consecutive weeks, in a newspaper of general circulation where the facility is located. | Post the advertisement in not less than six conspicuous places in the neighbourhood, at least 10 days before the sale. | Motor vehicles, aircraft, mobile homes, mopeds, motorcycles, snowmobiles, trailers and watercraft ride a separate title-holder-search track under the Act — out of scope for our guide. |
| Ohio | One notice, but to a three-class statutory recipient set. Our guide flags that the occupant is not named in that list and is reached only inferentially. | In person; certified mail; or first-class mail or a private delivery service, with a certificate or verification of mailing. Certified mail sits outside the deemed-delivered-on-deposit presumption — the guide's conservative practice is to anchor certified-mail cases on actual delivery. | Permitted to the occupant only — never to any other recipient class — and only if two conditions both hold. If delivery cannot be established, the owner shall use another delivery method: a mandatory fallback, and day 0 re-anchors to that later delivery. | Either once a week for two consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the facility's county, or any other commercially reasonable manner. | No posting fallback exists in Ohio, and our guide says none should be assumed. | The lien is not effective against a valid security interest in a motor vehicle or watercraft, even if that interest was never filed; a secured party showing proof may remove the unit without paying anything. The guide calls trailer status murkier. |
| Pennsylvania | One notice of default, with five required elements plus one conditional element. | Four channels: personal service; verified mail; certified mail, return receipt requested; and e-mail. | Only if three lease conditions all hold. Once they do, an e-mailed notice is presumed served on sending, with no delivery-receipt condition and no statutory mail fallback. | Two co-equal routes: two insertions in a newspaper of general circulation serving the area, or one such insertion plus one posting on a publicly accessible website that regularly advertises or conducts online sales of personal property. No online-only route and no commercially-reasonable option. | Post the full advertisement in not less than six conspicuous places in the neighbourhood, at least 10 days before the sale — but only where no newspaper of general circulation serves the area. | No title-search duty and no lienholder-notice track anywhere in Chapter 56. |
| Michigan | One notice of intent to enforce the lien, with five required elements. | In person, first-class mail, or e-mail, to the tenant and any designated occupant. Presumed delivered on USPS deposit or on e-mail transmission. | No lease opt-in, no bold-print consent clause, no receipt requirement. | Two co-equal routes: once a week for two consecutive weeks in the print or electronic version of a newspaper of general circulation, or the same cadence on a publicly available website identified in the rental agreement — a route dating to 2009. | Post in not less than three conspicuous places in the neighbourhood, at least 10 days before the sale — but only where both a newspaper and a lease-named website are unavailable. | Eight property types — motor vehicle, aircraft, mobile home, moped, motorcycle, snowmobile, trailer and watercraft — are pulled onto a separate track, out of scope for our guide. |
Each of our state guides nominates a trap. These are those, in the guides' own terms, alongside what has recently changed in each state and what is currently moving through its legislature.
| State | Standout quirk | Recent change & what's pending |
|---|---|---|
| Texas | None of the non-judicial path is available unless the lease already contains a seize-and-sell power in underlined or conspicuous bold print. A notice cannot fix that after the fact. The Notice of Claim also carries its own bold-print military-service statement, which the guide notes is separate from the actual protections a servicemember has. | No recent change and no pending bill named on our Texas guide. |
| California | The Notice of Lien Sale must include a blank Declaration in Opposition to Lien Sale. If the tenant fills it in, signs it and returns it before the deadline, the right to sell the unit yourself is gone — the only path forward is court. | Two 2025 bills, AB 498 and SB 709, amended parts of the law effective 1 January 2026. No pending bill named on our California guide. |
| Florida | Assuming certified mail is what the statute asks for. It is not — the floor is a certificate of mailing, a different and cheaper USPS product. Our guide calls this the single biggest trap in Florida. | SB 386 and companion HB 587 would have expanded the "last known address" definition. Both died in committee in June 2025 — current law is unchanged. Our guide names no currently pending bill, but flags the 2026 session as worth watching. |
| Georgia | In Georgia the lease is the compliance instrument. The statute conditions non-judicial enforcement on the owner having obtained a rental agreement containing prescribed model-agreement language — the default definition, the 30-day gate, the notice contents, the demand, the advertisement, the sale and the redemption right are all written as contract terms inside that model lease. Whether verbatim inclusion is required or substantially similar language suffices is a question our guide expressly declines to answer. | Amended in 2024 (electronic execution; a deemed-acceptance rule) and 2025 (the commercially-reasonable advertising alternative). A consumer-protection bill covering self-storage was introduced in the 2025–26 session and referred to second readers in January 2025; it has not moved since, and a 2026 revival is possible. |
| North Carolina | The primary notice is not a payment-cure demand. It has no "pay within X days" clause and no sale date, time or place — it is an offer of a judicial hearing on the validity of the lien. A timely demand for that hearing is a hard stop: the lien can then be enforced only by court order. There is also a mandatory online UCC search with the Secretary of State before notice goes out. | Session Law 2013-239 repealed the enumerated sale-notice contents; Session Law 2025-25 was a technical-only revision. No pending bill named on our North Carolina guide, though it notes the 2026 short session was in progress as it was written. |
| New York | The penalties are the outlier: violations expose the operator to treble damages plus attorney's fees in a private suit, and to state civil penalties of up to $1,000 per violation. In New York City, Local Law 162 of 2025 adds 60 days' written notice before any occupancy-fee increase and bars terminating an occupant without an explanation. | Pending. Two bills have passed the State Senate — one requiring an active phone number and documented telephone-contact attempts about lien-notice mailings, one barring lien sales during a declared state disaster emergency — and both sit in the Assembly. A broader bill (public sale only, a 45-day demand, mandatory publication, a servicemember hold, surplus to the state after a year) is pending in Assembly Judiciary. |
| Illinois | The single notice has to state the sale's date, time, location and manner before you send it — and the eventual sale has to conform to what the notice said. Since 1 January 2026 that includes disclosing the website where online bidding may take place, if applicable. | Public Act 104-139 (SB 2220) added the online-bidding-website disclosure, in force since 1 January 2026. No pending bill named on our Illinois guide. |
| Ohio | The published advertisement must state the occupant's name and last known address — our guide calls it the most privacy-invasive advertisement requirement of the states it covers. | Pending: Senate Bill 283 (136th General Assembly) would change the demand window from not less than ten days to not less than ninety, pushing the earliest possible sale from about day 26 to about day 106. It has not passed, has no effective date, and sits in the Senate General Government Committee. Everything about it describes what it would do, not current Ohio law. |
| Pennsylvania | The statute changed identity on 23 January 2026: the 1982 Act you may know as 73 P.S. §§ 1901–1917 was repealed and recodified as 12 Pa.C.S. Ch. 56, §§ 5601–5619. Old citations are stale. Separately, a sale surplus left unclaimed six months after the sale is abandoned property, and the owner must report and pay it to the State Treasurer. | The recodification took effect 23 January 2026. Our guide found no 2026 act touching Chapter 56 in its pass, but notes the chapter is about seven months old, no court has construed it, and the 2025–26 session runs through 2026. |
| Michigan | Two duties that are easy to miss. On default itself — not on sending the notice — the owner must notify every holder of a perfected UCC security interest naming the tenant as debtor, for all property in the unit, not just titled property. And a tenant who gives written evidence of an overseas active-duty deployment of 180 days or more gets an open-ended hold: no enforcement until 90 days after that service ends, on top of the federal SCRA. | Pending: House Bill 4711 passed the Michigan House 89–17 on 11 March 2026 and was referred to the Senate Committee on Regulatory Affairs on 17 March 2026. It has not passed the Senate and has no effective date. The act was last amended by 2014 PA 61. |
The anchors, the demand windows and the delivery rules all differ — which is exactly what makes multi-state compliance by hand expensive. LienFlow tracks the deadlines per state and generates the notice for you to review and file — $49/mo when your state launches.
Reserve your spotEvery cell above was sourced from our own ten state guides, not written fresh. Where a guide hedges, this page hedges with it; where a guide does not address a point, the cell says "not covered" and links out rather than filling the gap. Nothing here asserts anything its state page does not already say.
The two cross-state superlatives on this page — that Ohio runs the shortest clock and Pennsylvania the slowest floor — are claims those guides make about themselves, and both are stated here with their anchors attached. That matters: Pennsylvania's ~71 days count from the first day of default and Ohio's ~26 count from notice delivery, so the gap between them is not 45 days of extra process.
The underlying guides were written from statute text pulled from official sources where we could reach them, and from secondary compilations where we could not — each guide says which, and each names what it could not verify. None of them has been reviewed by a licensed attorney in any state. Written 12 August 2026.