Storage Facility Lost or Wrecked Your Stuff? Make Them Pay for It

You paid $185 a month for a storage unit while you were between houses. When you went to collect, the roof had leaked, the boxes on the floor were soaked, the mattress was black with mould, and the timber dining table you inherited from your nan had swollen and split. The manager handed you the contract: “Goods stored at customer’s sole risk. Facility accepts no liability.”

Read that clause again. Then throw it away.

Storage is a service. The ACL applies.

• Section 60 – the service must be provided with due care and skill. Keeping your goods dry is the entire point of paying for indoor storage.
• Section 61 – the service must be fit for the purpose you told them about. “I need to store furniture safely for six months” is a purpose.
• Section 64 – a contract term that tries to exclude or limit these guarantees is void. That “sole risk” clause is worth nothing against a claim for their own negligence.
• Section 267 – you can claim compensation for the loss caused by the failure.

Storage companies know this. They keep the clause in the contract because it stops people from asking.

The “did you take out our insurance” trick

Many facilities push their own insurance at sign-up and then say “you declined cover, so bad luck”. Insurance protects you from things that aren’t their fault (fire, theft by a third party, a flood from the street). It does not let them off the hook for a leaking roof they didn’t fix, a unit they let someone else empty, or mould from a facility with no ventilation. Negligence is on them, insured or not.

Evidence

• Photograph everything in the unit before you move a single box. Then the water stains, the roof, the ceiling, the mould.
• Get the manager to sign or email an acknowledgement that the damage happened on site.
• List every damaged item with what it cost or what it would cost to replace. Receipts if you have them, online prices if you don’t.
• Get a restoration quote for anything worth saving.

Send a Letter of Demand

The letter sets out the itemised loss, the photos, ss 60, 61, 64 and 267, and a 14-day deadline. Send it to the facility’s head office, not the site manager. Big operators (Kennards, National Storage, Storage King and the franchises) have legal and insurance teams that settle valid claims quickly, especially when the letter mentions the tribunal and the ACCC’s views on unfair terms.

If it goes to the tribunal, you have photos of a leaking roof and their contract clause. They have a contract clause that the law says is void. Not a hard case.

You paid them to look after your things. Nan’s table deserved better. So do you.

Claim Done drafts your Letter of Demand for $49. Done in about 5 minutes. You approve it before it is sent.