Lost property notice template
This lost property notice template tells guests how long your site keeps found items, how documents and cards are handled, what happens afterwards and how to ask about an item.
Fill in the blanks from your own policy, then print it for the desk or put the words on your website. Nothing you type leaves your browser, and there is no sign-up.
Lost property: how long we keep found items
Replace each part in square brackets with your own policy.
How long we keep items
[Site name] keeps items handed in to [desk or office] for [number] days from the date they are found.
Bank cards and identity documents: [what you do, for example returned to the issuer or destroyed after a set number of days].
Food, drink and items that are unsafe or unhygienic are not kept.
What happens afterwards
After [number] days, unclaimed items are [donated to charity, recycled or securely destroyed].
Personal data on phones, laptops and papers is destroyed before an item leaves us.
How to ask about an item
Contact [desk name] at [phone or email], or visit [place and opening hours].
We will ask you to describe the item and may ask for identification before we return it.
Why publish your holding period
A guest who knows the deadline asks in time, and a desk that has published its period can clear its shelves without arguments. Many operators publish their periods on their own websites; our holding periods data lists them with the words they use.
Read more
Use the same period on the notice, on your website and in your written policy, and change all three together.
Check the law where you are
Some laws set a period for found property, or say what you may do with it afterwards. Our pages on the laws we have read quote the texts; they are information, not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
What should a lost property notice say?+
How long found items are kept, how bank cards and identity documents are handled, what happens to unclaimed items, and how to ask about an item, including the description and identification you will ask for.
Where should a lost property notice go?+
At the desk where items are handed in and collected, and on your website, with the same words in both places.
How long should the notice say items are kept?+
The period in your own written policy, after checking any law that applies where you are. Our holding periods data shows what airports, transport operators, universities, stadiums and others publish.
Put your holding period on your own lost and found page
vFound Lost & Found gives your site a branded lost and found page where guests search found items and report losses, and lists the items whose holding period ends within a week. Request your free trial: a 14-day free trial we set up with you, then yearly by invoice.