Liability for Rental Equipment the Store Never Retrieved

Attorney Answer

You are almost certainly not on the hook for rental charges that piled up after you told them to come get it — but you have to be able to prove you offered it back, and until it is gone you still have to take reasonable care of it.

New Mexico's version of UCC Article 2A, governing leases of goods, is codified at NMSA 1978 §§ 55-2A-101 et seq. Whether a short-term consumer equipment rental from a retailer is actually a "lease" within Article 2A, rather than a common-law bailment, turns on the Article's own definition of "lease," and that has to be checked before its remedies are relied on.

Here is the practical point: it does not much matter which one applies. If Article 2A does not govern, your rights come from the rental contract and from ordinary bailment principles — and under either framework, a person holding someone else's goods who tenders them back and is repeatedly stood up by the owner has a strong record against continuing rental charges. The reason to know this is so you do not spend energy on the classification question and neglect the thing that actually decides the outcome, which is your documentation.

The other half of the answer is the part people miss. While the skid steer sits on your property, you still have a duty to take reasonable care of it. If it is stolen or damaged because you left it out and unsecured, that is a separate exposure from the rental charges, and it will not be answered by pointing at their missed pickups.

What you can do

1. Today, send one written message to the store manager — email or text, and keep a copy. State the unit and contract number, the address where it sits, the two pickup dates they scheduled and missed, that it is available for pickup now, and that you do not agree to charges accruing after the first scheduled pickup date. 2. In the same message, ask whether you may return it yourself. If they say yes, take it back and get a signed, dated receipt from a named employee before you leave. 3. Photograph the equipment where it sits, with the date visible, and photograph its condition and hour meter. Do this now and again the day it leaves. 4. Keep it secured — locked, out of the weather, and off the street where possible. Your duty of care continues while you hold it. 5. Read the rental contract for the return provision, the late fee provision, the loss and damage provision, and any insurance or damage waiver you bought. Those terms govern whether or not §§ 55-2A-101 et seq. apply. 6. If they bill you for the extra days, dispute the charge in writing with the store, and if it went on a card, dispute it with your card issuer within that issuer's dispute window. 7. If anyone suggests reporting the equipment as stolen, respond in writing with your record of tenders. A documented, repeated offer to return the equipment is the direct answer to a claim that you kept it.