Recovering Personal Belongings Withheld by Former Roommates in West Virginia

Attorney Answer

Being told to move out did not transfer ownership of your things — they are still yours, and West Virginia gives you a court procedure designed to get them back quickly.

The governing law

W. Va. Code § 55-6-1 et seq. is titled "Recovery of Personal Property." Its lead section, § 55-6-1, is headed "Immediate recovery of possession of personal property; notice and prejudgment hearing," and it sets out the civil procedure for a person seeking immediate return of specific goods. You file, the other side gets notice, and the court holds a prejudgment hearing within five to ten days at which it examines your basis for claiming a right to possession and their reasons for keeping the property. That short timeline is the point of the statute — it exists so people do not have to wait a year to get their own belongings back.

You also keep a separate common-law conversion claim for damages. That matters if your things have already been sold, given away, or destroyed, because then what you need is money rather than the items themselves.

One thing to be realistic about: police very often treat a dispute like this as a civil matter and decline to make anyone hand anything over. What they will usually do is meet you there to keep the peace while you collect. Ask for that specifically — a "civil standby" — rather than asking them to make your former roommates comply.

What you can do

1. Write out a complete list of what is still in that house, item by item, with what each is worth. 2. Pull together anything that proves the items are yours: receipts, order confirmations, photographs of you with the item, serial numbers, boxes in your name. 3. Send one written demand — text or email is fine, certified letter is better — listing the items, asking for a specific date and time to collect them, and keeping a copy. Their refusal in writing is the strongest evidence you can create right now. 4. Call the local detachment and ask for a civil standby to accompany you at a set time. If they decline, note the date you asked. 5. If they still refuse, go to the magistrate clerk's office and ask to file for immediate recovery of possession of personal property under § 55-6-1, and ask for the prejudgment hearing the statute provides. 6. If any item has been sold, pawned, or destroyed, add a conversion claim for its value instead of chasing the item.

⏱ Time limits apply. A suit to recover property or its value has to be filed within a limitations period, and which period applies depends on how the claim is framed and on the date they first refused to return your things. Do not let this sit for months while you negotiate.