Moving out expense

[NicMM]

Though my family has moved to Bay area over 21 months now, I still like to comes here to seek advices from Piggs.

Finally we bought a house in Peninsula. Now in the middle of packing and moving out from the rental house. The landlord asks to paint the wall and refinish the floor. Checked with some contractors recommended by the landlord, two day’s touch up painting is $500, sanding and painting on the wood floor with some scratches costs $450, moving out cleaning $350. Plus the rent paid for the days of doing these is over $400. There are some stains on the wall and some scratches in one area of floor. In the hope of getting of my full deposit back, I am going to do all these. But can’t help but thinking paying $1700 for moving out this 1290 sqft old house is so expensive.

[paramount]

Did you request and get an initial pre-move out inspection?

[HLS]

You say NO. For $1700 I would take your landlord to small claims court and let the judge decide what normal wear and tear is.

I don’t think that you have anything to lose.
Many landlords are clueless about what they can legally charge for and bully tenants.

You didn’t rent a brand new house and your landlord doesn’t get a brand new house at the end of your tenancy.

You cannot legally be charged for ‘normal wear & tear’ I would inform the landlord in advance that you are leaving it broom clean and if you don’t get your full deposit back, you will be filing in small claims court to get it back.

Even if you miss a few hours or a day of work, is that worth $1700 to you ?
Best case is you have to pay nothing, possibly a portion of it rather than all.
Worst case is you lose and pay, which you say you are willing to do anyway.

Did you do damage to the property OR is it just normal wear and tear ??

[EconProf]

Lots of problems here with the landlord’s claim. After 21 months, “touch-up” painting is part of normal wear and tear. As for the scratches in the wood floor…can the LL prove they did not exist before you moved in? Does he have pictures? Also, as Paramount mentioned, did he do a pre-inspection walk through and list, in writing, these deficiencies? The burden of proof in court is high on the LL, and he really doesn’t want to go there. BTW, all your listed repairs/cleaning look way high, even for high-cost Bay area.
As HLS mentioned, tenant is not supposed to return property in “rent-ready” condition. And the deposit is not supposed to be a profit center for the owner. Rental owners like this give us all a bad name and need to be called out. I constantly run into new tenants who don’t trust me because of a previous bad LL, and it takes a long time to establish credibility.

[NicMM]

The landlord asked me to do all these before the moving out inspection. I really have no idea after all these if she will still charge something else.
Should I refuse?

I have small kids, they put stickers on the wall and floor. There is one area under a rocking chair that we made big notable scratches. Because it is such a small space, the closets are not sliding ones but folding ones, sometimes when a closet door is not fully closed, you open the room door and enter the room , the door nob knocks to the closet door. So there are dents on the closet door too. Other than that, we didn’t do any other damage. We hire cleaners to clean the house every month for $80.

The house is old. But the condition when we moved in was better than today. I am fine to pay some repair. I just feel if I am paying too much (and still no guaranteed to get full deposit back). Nevertheless, the labor in Bay Area is very expensive.

If I don’t do all these, and landlord gets the same (or even more) bill with invoice to show my deduct from the deposit, is that legitimate for her to do? She even mentioned if she repairs, she will deduct the cost for days the house not available for rent.
I am not a person that would like to argue with people, hard to think to go to court for these kind of things.

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

You are being bullied. The landlord cannot charge you for days the unit is not rented due to repairs.
(They can only do that if you break a lease or if they evict you do to damages that you don;t repair). If it’s a normal end of lease they cannot charge that.

You might want to review the following tenants rights publication from LA County (maybe a similar one for San Diego):
http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/eh/docs/housing/brochure/tenright.pdf

There are 4 specific things they can charge you for…

California law speciically allows the landlord to
use a tenant’s security deposit for four purposes:
• For unpaid rent;
• For cleaning the rental unit when the tenant
moves out, but only to make the unit as clean
as it was when the tenant irst moved in;214
• For repair of damages, other than normal wear
and tear, caused by the tenant or the tenant’s
guests; and
• if the lease or rental agreement allows it, for
the cost of restoring or replacing furniture,
furnishings, or other items of personal
property (including keys), other than because
of normal wear and tear.

A landlord can withhold from the security
deposit only those amounts that are reasonably
necessary for these purposes.

[NicMM]

Hi FSD,
How do you decide what is normal wear and tear, and what is not?

Also just a thought, could an unhappy landlord cause negative impact to my credit? For example, this time when I purchased my house, the loan officer asked the landlord to fill some information before approving my loan. We pay our rent on 20th each month with bank automatic payment and had no cause to make her unhappy, certainly the landlord did not write any bad thing.

What if in 7 years and we want to buy another property and the landlord is mad at me about the moving out, could she delay responding to loan related inquiry and cause the delay of loan approval?

[HLS]

If they violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you can go after them.
A new lender will NOT contact your landlord in 7 years!!

They sound like an ignorant landlord and need to be called on their nonsense.

Within 21 days of you vacating, they MUST provide receipts for work done to you and can deduct them from your deposit. If it’s unreasonable you have to sue them in small claims court to get money back.
If they do not provide receipts to you within 21 days, you are entitled to receive your entire deposit back. DO NOT TELL THEM THIS, it’s not your obligation.

they CANNOT legally charge you for vacant days after you move out, that’s insane and their threat tells me that they are ignorant.

It’s up to you to decide what you want to do. You will have to get a judge to tell them the law.
They cannot make up their own rules!

[NicMM]

Thanks HLS.

[CA renter]

[quote=NicMM]The landlord asked me to do all these before the moving out inspection. I really have no idea after all these if she will still charge something else.
Should I refuse?

I have small kids, they put stickers on the wall and floor. There is one area under a rocking chair that we made big notable scratches. Because it is such a small space, the closets are not sliding ones but folding ones, sometimes when a closet door is not fully closed, you open the room door and enter the room , the door nob knocks to the closet door. So there are dents on the closet door too. Other than that, we didn’t do any other damage. We hire cleaners to clean the house every month for $80.

The house is old. But the condition when we moved in was better than today. I am fine to pay some repair. I just feel if I am paying too much (and still no guaranteed to get full deposit back). Nevertheless, the labor in Bay Area is very expensive.

If I don’t do all these, and landlord gets the same (or even more) bill with invoice to show my deduct from the deposit, is that legitimate for her to do? She even mentioned if she repairs, she will deduct the cost for days the house not available for rent.
I am not a person that would like to argue with people, hard to think to go to court for these kind of things.[/quote]

Great posts by the other posters, especially HLS and econprof.

Not sure about how tight your schedule is, but you might check with some local handymen to ask how much they would charge for some of the repairs that are not “normal” wear and tear. If your LL is recommending certain contractors, they might be related and could conspire to include things that weren’t there or claim the damages were greater than they really were, and/or they could overcharge you and make it more difficult to prove your case in court.

Congratulations on the purchase of your new home, and good luck with the LL!

[HLS]

With an idiot/ignorant/clueless landlord,The problem if you have the work done yourself, it may not be satisfactory to them and they will hire someone to do it again/differently.
My claim to a judge is that the work didn’t need to be done at all. It was normal wear & tear.

I seriously would tell the landlord *in advance* that you intend on taking them to small claims court to justify their repairs to you.
Put het on notice that YOU are in control and not afraid of her, and that what she is asking for is unreasonable.

You are going to need to stand up to this bully or it is going to cost you. I would also follow through with filing in small claims court.

If they have already filled out the form needed for your loan, there probably isn’t anything else that will be needed from them, ever.

It sounds like in the long run you are willing to pay for ‘damage’ that you think you have done.
Let a judge decide what ‘damage’ is VS. wear & tear.
A sympathetic judge might even say that stickers placed by kids is normal wear & tear!
Many judges enjoy reaming people who are clueless about laws that exist and are bullying.

You stated that you don’t like confrontation, but that could cost you greatly in this situation if you don’t stand up top her.

There is also a chance that she will not provide you with proper receipts within 21 days.

[EconProf]

Much of what we read on Piggington is not worthwhile. But every so often a gem of a comment, like the one above from HLS comes along and proves the value of Piggington.
We just saw insider and expert like HLS give spot-on and valuable advice to someone in great need of help. He sniffed out the weaknesses of the “bully” and gave the poster the ammunition to proceed. And we other observers all learned from it as well. Thank you HLS, and thank you Piggington.

[NicMM]

Thanks everyone. I struggled a few days to think about the possibility of leaving the house as simple as broom sweep, and ended up to hire some contractors not recommended by the landlord. Today, I went to check the work, and found the touch-up paint does not look flawless because I can tell new paint from the old paint.

I don’t know what the landlord would say or do. But if I don’t get my deposit back, I will resort to the small claim court. Better research on that now. Will keep you posted.

[CA renter]

Take pictures of everything, and have the date stamp on the pics (better than nothing). You can also take a picture of the place with a copy of a newspaper with that date on it — clearly visible in the picture.

Good luck!

[HLS]

Nic,,
Hope that it all works out for you. I understand that you wanted to ‘do the right thing’ and (hopefully)get your deposit back.
Hopefully you didn’t throw away your money.
If they are not happy with the work that you paid for, they are going to hire someone else to do it and charge you for it anyway.

Had you let the landlord pay for repairs out of your deposit, you would have had no additional out of pocket expense, and the burden of satisfaction was on the landlord to have the work done.

Now you are in the position of being out the money that you spent for repairs and possibly your deposit as well.

I hope that you don’t walk away from this because you don’t like confrontation.
Small claims court may be your only remedy.
If your landlord tries anything illegal in front of the judge, hopefully the judge tears them apart and awards you.

You should not ask your landlord about the status of your deposit within the 21 day period, add a couple of days to be safe.
If you put them on notice that you intended to file, they may be fair with you.
Who knows what they will do, each case is different.

*General advice to anybody is: IF you are comfortable, Owe your landlord rather than have them owe you. You have negotiating power that you don’t have when they owe you*
Although a ‘security deposit’ is not the ‘last months rent’ it can be used for unpaid rent after vacating. Even if landlord charges a late charge for that last month, it puts the burden of filing in court on them rather than you IF they want more money.
If you give notice, they usually will not/cannot evict you in 30 days.
You can often settle out of court and spend less than you thought you would have to spend if they already have your money. Nobody ‘wants’ to waste time in court, it just boils down to money.

[Author]

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