Laundry liability help?

[Gillian C.]

Hi all,

We purchased a property where the purchase documents indicated we were purchasing the washer and dryer with the building. After taking ownership, we come to find out that the long-term tenants (who are generally lovely and take great care of property - low shovel etc) are actually the owners of the washer and dryer, though it is in common space.

In the next year, we plan to put HVAC in the building with in-laundry units. However we don’t currently have a plan for that project and we want to offer all 3 tenants the use of the laundry room until then.

Note that the leases do NOT indicate that the tenants have access to laundry, however we want to give our tenants all access to the washer and dryer, particularly because one tenant is very pregnant and it seems like having a newborn without laundry access would suck.

We have told the elderly tenants that we want to purchase the W/D from them to make them public use machines. They are in a common area with the only current laundry hookup in the building. They came back and the woman showed us a rash on her leg, saying we could have the dryer but not the washer because of this rash. Not sure the logic here, if she’s concerned about her rash spreading or what - bottom line we need to make the W/D public.

We’d like to do the following but wondering if anyone has any legal or other feedback on this plan:

Write a second letter that says they have a choice, either sell us the washer dryer or they will be disconnected and we will install new ones in their place.

My question is primarily about our rights in touching/moving/disconnecting a W/D that does not belong to us.

Thanks for your help!