[madaxe_again]

In France it’s only counted as abandoned if it is more than 30 years. These guys rocked up at something like 29 years and 9 months, and because there had been a verbal agreement that they would one day collect, and my mother allowed it, she was deemed to have stolen property she was entrusted to store.

She was actually lucky to avoid criminal charges.

[tomrod]

I maintain that this is a dumb (i.e. completely unreasonable) outcome for your mother.

Abandonment should be measured at the takeover of property in lieu of agreement, and a reasonable time frame for pickup agreement is on the order of days, not years.

[elzbardico]

I really think she should counter-sue for storage fees and damages.

[77pt77]

This is ridiculous.

At that point just lie and say that it never happened.

Or that the preperty was just some dishes or something.