N.Y. General Business Law § 209: Certain sales after eighteen months

§ 209. Certain sales after eighteen months. Any keeper of a hotel,

motel, apartment hotel, inn, boarding-house, rooming-house or

lodging-house, except an immigrant lodging-house, whose lien for fare,

lodging, accommodation or board upon any goods, baggage or other chattel

property, shall not have been paid for a period of eighteen months, may

sell such property at public auction for cash to the highest bidder upon

mailing a notice inclosed in a securely closed postpaid wrapper,

directed to the person who left such property with such keeper, at the

post office of the ctiy, town or village where such hotel, motel,

apartment hotel, inn, boarding-house, rooming-house or lodging-house is

situated, such notice to contain a statement of the time and place when

and where such goods, baggage or other chattel property will be sold and

such notice shall be mailed at least fifteen days before such sale shall

take place. Such keeper shall, out of the proceeds of such sale, retain

the amount of his lien and the expense of selling such property, and, if

there be any surplus, he shall, within ten days after such sale, upon

demand, pay over such surplus to the person whose property was sold. In

case such surplus shall not be demanded and paid as aforesaid, within

said ten days, then within five days thereafter, such keeper shall pay

such surplus to the treasurer of the county or chamberlain or other

chief fiscal officer of the city in which such sale took place, and

shall, at the same time, file with said treasurer, chamberlain or other

chief fiscal officer a statement in writing containing the name of the

person whose property was sold, the price at which it was sold, the date

of such sale and by whom sold. Such surplus shall be kept and disposed

of in the manner provided in section two hundred and eight of this

chapter. Nothing contained in this article shall preclude any other

remedy now existing for the enforcement and satisfaction of a lien of

the keeper of a hotel, motel, apartment hotel, inn, boarding-house,

rooming-house or lodging-house, except an immigrant lodging-house, nor

bar his right to recover for so much of the debt as shall not be paid

through such sale.