If someone leaves their stuff on your premises, some interesting things happen from a legal point of view.

For one thing, you can demand they remove their stuff. You can charge them any out of pocket expenses you incur in storing their stuff, or on getting rid of their stuff. For example, if someone leaves their dog and the dog chews your slippers and then dies on your carpet, you can charge them for the slippers, cleaning the carpet and the disposal expenses.

However, if you go out and they break into your house to retrieve the dog (dead or alive), that’s not burglary. You can charge them for the damage they do, but you can’t get them locked up.

Although I can’t tell you the precise legal points involved, there are 2 key issues. One is that they broke in purely to retrieve property that they owned. The other is that they cause the minimum of damage to achieve that end, and took only their own property. If they take anything else it’s burglary.

Let’s assume you take your car to be repaired. The garage quotes $500, but when you go back they demand $5,000. You refuse to pay, and they refuse to return your car. Your car is worth $50,000, which is clearly far more than the debt. You are happy to go to court to resolve the debt, but you want your car back.

If you go back that night and break into the garage to retrieve your car, you are not stealing anything and nor did you intend to. The police will regard this as a commercial dispute and as long as there is no violence or malicious damage they will not take any action. If you cause excessive damage you may be liable to repair it.

You should be aware of this if you ever considered holding someone’s property against their will to secure some debt or obligation.