Tenants left nail holes on walls

[allenartlab]

Dear Fellow Piggington Landords or Renters:

I would like to get your opinion/advice on how to deal with this situation: tenants left some nail holes on a number of walls of my rental house, where they hang familiy photoes, wall fixtures, etc. I was wondering how much I should deduct from their deposit in this situation. To restore the walls to their original look/condition, I have to have the walls repainted since patching and touch up just won’t work. However, tenants were saying it was not fair to have them pay for repaint as those were normal “tear and wear”. Needless to say, I did not put any specific terms about this in the lease agreement. So have you dealt with this situration before? Your input highly appreciated.

[spdrun]

How many walls? How many holes? How big holes?

Honestly, if they’re normal-sized nail holes, I’d just fill them with pre-mixed plaster filler and touch up with an artist’s brush. It’s a rental. Tenants don’t need perfect, just livable and decent.

And remember to put a “no holes” clause in the next lease.

[allenartlab]

spdrun:

Thanks for your reply. About 10 walls and 30+ holes. The holes are normal nail holes. Are “pre-mixed plaster filler” and artist brush something available from Homedepot? What about color match?

[allenartlab]

I would also like to add that I plan to sell the house and the house was only rented out for 1 year.

[spdrun]

You can get tiny brushes at a hardware store (d/k about HD) or art supply store. Premixed patching compound is for sure available there. Use an x-Acto knife with the blade reversed to push a little blob of compound into the hole.

Color match — if you know what paint you used initially, you should be able to get a batch that’s very close in color mixed up. And next time you repaint, store a gallon or so of paint in bottled water bottles. The caps seal well so the paint’s ability to dry is minimized compared to a can. Should last quite a few years for touch-up purposes.

[allenartlab]

spdrun: again thanks for your input! So should tenants pay for this if I were to hire a handyman or painter to do the touchup job?

[pencilneck]

I agree with the posters above.

California state landlord guidelines also covers this:

http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/sec-deposit.shtml

3. Repainting walls

One approach for determining the amount that the landlord can deduct from the tenant’s security deposit for repainting, when repainting is necessary, is based on the length of the tenant’s stay in the rental unit. This approach assumes that interior paint has a two-year life. (Some landlords assume that interior paint has a life of three years or more.)

Length of stay –Deduction
Less than 6 months –full cost
6 months to 1 year –two-thirds of cost
1 year to 2 years –one-third of cost
2 or more years –no deduction

Using this approach, if the tenant lived in the rental unit for two years or more, the tenant could not be charged for any repainting costs, no matter how dirty the walls were.

4. Other damage to walls

Generally, minor marks or nicks in walls are the landlord’s responsibility as normal wear and tear (for example, worn paint caused by a sofa against the wall). Therefore, the tenant should not be charged for such marks or nicks. However, a large number of holes in the walls or ceiling that require filling with plaster, or that otherwise require patching and repainting, could justify withholding the cost of repainting from the tenant’s security deposit. In this situation, deducting for painting would be more likely to be proper if the rental unit had been painted recently, and less likely to be proper if the rental unit needed repainting anyway. Generally, large marks or paint gouges are the tenant’s responsibility.

[no_such_reality]

Did you identify the need to fill the nail holes on walk through and provide the tenant with the ability to remedy themselves?

Frankly, if you’re going to be looking to charge for the normal nail holes from hanging pictures, you shouldn’t be renting a place out unfurnished. It’s unrealistic to expect people to leave the walls sitting bare and short of big holes and meaningful repair work, the cost of having a tenant turnover.

Piddly *ss stuff like this is why so many renters, IMHO are just uncaring SOBs when leaving. They assume you’re going to grab every penny you can from the security deposit so they might as well leave the work for you.

Seriously, a foam touch up brush from home depot is 39 cents, a little 8 ounce far of match-paint, something like $2.99 and a small can of spackle is another $2.99 with again, a sub-$1 plastic putty knife to do it and you need about an hour to do them all.

You walk in, squeegee a dab of spackle into the hole and wipe smooth, move to the next hole repeat. When done with the spackle, pick up the pint of paint and the foam brush, shake, step up to the hole, did the corner into the paint, wipe on can lid, dab tiny corner on spackle spot. Move to next nail hole, repeat.

Or hire a handy man and turn it into a $100-$200 “job”.

[ltsddd]

[quote=allenartlab]I would also like to add that I plan to sell the house and the house was only rented out for 1 year.[/quote]

Did you give the rooms a new paint job before you rented out the house? If the tenants didn’t put the nail holes in the wall, would you sell the house without first giving it a new coat of paint?

[CDMA ENG]

This is one of the easiest things to fix.

You don’t paint brushes… Just the can of spackle and the paint.

Buy some spackle… You just need a tiny canister of it.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Phenopatch-8-oz-All-Purpose-Spackling-Paste-10222/202066014

Wash your hands and dry them thoroughly… Dip one finger in it just up to the tip. Then gently rub it into the hole… Smooth it out so it blends with the texture. Shouldnt take you more than 30 second per hole once you figure it out the first time you do it.

Give the spackle a couple of hours to dry…

Clean your hand again… pour the matching paint into a dixie cup after giving it a good mix… dip your finger tip again into the paint and apply it to the spackle point. You shouldn’t be painting an area any large than half the circumference of a penny.

Its easy and quick to do…

If you repainted the whole wall and then charged me for it… You would be seeing me in court..

Hope that helps…

By the way there should be a youtube video about this for sure…

CE

[CA renter]

[quote=no_such_reality]Did you identify the need to fill the nail holes on walk through and provide the tenant with the ability to remedy themselves?

Frankly, if you’re going to be looking to charge for the normal nail holes from hanging pictures, you shouldn’t be renting a place out unfurnished. It’s unrealistic to expect people to leave the walls sitting bare and short of big holes and meaningful repair work, the cost of having a tenant turnover.

Piddly *ss stuff like this is why so many renters, IMHO are just uncaring SOBs when leaving. They assume you’re going to grab every penny you can from the security deposit so they might as well leave the work for you.

Seriously, a foam touch up brush from home depot is 39 cents, a little 8 ounce far of match-paint, something like $2.99 and a small can of spackle is another $2.99 with again, a sub-$1 plastic putty knife to do it and you need about an hour to do them all.

You walk in, squeegee a dab of spackle into the hole and wipe smooth, move to the next hole repeat. When done with the spackle, pick up the pint of paint and the foam brush, shake, step up to the hole, did the corner into the paint, wipe on can lid, dab tiny corner on spackle spot. Move to next nail hole, repeat.

Or hire a handy man and turn it into a $100-$200 “job”.[/quote]

Nailed it with this and CE’s post, above.

This is nothing compared to what a long-time landlord will see. Not sure why any LL would expect their tenants to keep everything as though the house were a museum. It’s for living in, and it will cost money to maintain it on an ongoing basis. This is what being a landlord is all about. If the tenants were hanging pictures, it means they thought of it as their home and probably treated it better than tenants who’d keep the walls bare.

[strideam]

Agree with the above. You can’t charge for nail holes. Jeez. You’ve painted before right? You save the paint and do touch ups when the tenants move out. Or, if you’re selling the place, I assume you’re going to paint anyway before putting it on the market.

[spdrun]

Damn! This …

http://www.google.com/patents/US20030150190 [magnetic drywall]

… has already been invented

[CDMA ENG]

[quote=strideam]Agree with the above. You can’t charge for nail holes. Jeez. You’ve painted before right? You save the paint and do touch ups when the tenants move out. Or, if you’re selling the place, I assume you’re going to paint anyway before putting it on the market.[/quote]

People do… My current LL charges for anything above 3 per wall… So they are willing to incur some holes but not many… Either way its simple and any tenant worth having is probably going to but up some family pics…

CE

[spdrun]

When I bought my condo, there were literally over a hundred nails sticking out of the walls ranging from tiny finishing nails to full-sized construction nails. It took about a day and a half to remove each one and patch all of the holes (!)

Yeah, some people nail to excess.

[Author]

Posts