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We just recently rented a condo a few months ago and are now thinking of leaving after our 1 year lease expires because the neighbors are not what we expected. They play music frequently and it vibrates our floor, we hear the bass, we hear it everytime they play it. We smell cigarette smoke as well in our unit. Coupled with other problems that seem BIGGER than what they are because of this noise problem, makes us decide to move out. We have not told the landlord about our intentions for obvious reasons (its too early).
Most of you might be thinking ''well why didn't you take a look at the neighborhood before moving in?'' -- we did. It was nice and quiet. We spent hours cleaning the place and driving back and forth from our old place before moving in.
We are on good terms with the landlord. Rent has always been on time, the landlord has been called over a few times to fix things. I try to keep their visits a minimum so it doesn't look like we complain all the time.
My question is, according to the lease, 21 days after we vacate the premises, landlord is required to return any remaining portion of the deposit. Now, the landlord promised to fix certain things before we paid the deposit, so this is not supposed to deduct from the deposit correct? And the problems that were fixed by the landlord (after we moved in) were problems already present on the premises, so they do not deduct from the deposit either right? How often do tenants get their FULL deposit back after their lease expires?
How often do tenants leave the place 100% clean, they move in and expect the carpets cleaned, wall freshly painted or scrub, and floors waxed, and all appliances cleaned, all wood work and walls cabinet drawers clean, windows and blinds clean. and new keyed locks. with extra keys.
Most tenants are in a rush to get over to the new place and find something wrong there.
Every Time I move into a new house I can find plenty wrong,
In the first place, "landlords" are not some giant nation-wide machine that all spit out the same answer. Every landlord is a different person and every landlord does things differently.
It's not unusual for my tenant s to get all their deposit back, except for the professional carpet cleaning that they have agreed to before they signed the rental agreement.
You should not be charged for routine maintenance or repairs that you didn't cause. I hope you have some sort of proof that there was damage that needed repairs before you moved in. It's unlikey that your landlord will try to charge for that, but sometimes memories fail.
If you want all your deposit back, clean like crazy. Professional cleaning is expensive; if you don't want to pay for it, do your own cleaning. You have to do more than vacuum the carpet and sweep the floor. Dust the light fixtures, clean the window ledges, the door frames, the windows, and the track of the shower door. The fridge needs to be cleaned inside and out and dusted behind and the coils vacuumed. Drawers and cupboards need to be wiped out. The grubby fingerprints wiped off the doors and light switches.
I just spent 5 hours cleaning the walls after a tenant who never cleaned anything. He never dusted the walls and the dust had been there long enough to cling to the paint, so I had to dust the walls, and then go back and wash, and then go around with the magic eraser to remove all the marks and hand prints. He's getting every minute of that deducted from his deposit. He saved himself the bother of cleaning house while he lived there and he saved himself the trouble of cleaning the house when he moved out, but he is going to pay to have someone else clean, and it is going to cost him a lot of money.
You leave the place in as good or better than when you moved in and with a good LL you should have no problem.
No deductions are made for work done while you are there unless you caused the problems.
I'd be thrilled to promptly refund in full the security deposit on my rentals if the move-out condition was comparable to the move-in condition.
In 40 years of owning rental properties, that's happened a couple of times. The tenants moved out and returned to spend the time to make the place move-in ready, including carpet cleaning, repainting as needed, and a thorough cleaning. As well, they were reasonably clean in the place during the term of their tenancy. Good tenants, some have stayed in my places for 5-10 years before moving on.
But they were rare exceptions to what I usually find on departures at the end of a lease.
If leaving the place clean is our only concern, then I think we should be okay. We have floors, not carpets so I think cleaning will be easier for that. As far as fixtures go, we actually had to clean those at move in. In the Move In-Move Out sheet that we had to fill out, I made sure to list any negatives on it, so the landlord is aware of it. I also took some pictures of certain filthy areas (like the bathroom) before cleaning.
We'd like to use the deposit to move in to our next residence, but thats 8 months away. Deposits usually take weeks to receive after we vacate the premises, is this true?
We'd like to use the deposit to move in to our next residence, but thats 8 months away. Deposits usually take weeks to receive after we vacate the premises, is this true?
Under no arrangement are you going to have your security deposit "to move into (y)our next residence". Your lease clearly states that the security will be returned within 21 days of quit and (by state law) any deductions thereto must be itemized when the deposit's returned to you. Ergo, you won't have your deposit back for up to three weeks after you vacate.
I would LOVE to be able to give a tenant their entire security deposit back. It has never happened. Your average landlord really doesn't want your deposit to pay their own bills. They want the rent, paid in full, on time every single month, and when you respectfully leave with proper notice, they want the rental to be in such good condition that a new tenant can move in within just a couple of days time.
As I write the letter to my last tenant who abandoned the premises in Nov with the lease not up until end of january, in filthy and damaged condition, with some guy subletting that I did not know about..... The BILL after security deposit and the partial last month rent paid, is between $2000 and $2500, per everything detailed in the lease. I will never see it, but I have to send the danged letter anyway.
I also LOVE to give full refunds. That means I didn't have to spend my time arranging to have done all the things the tenant should have taken care of, and I end up with less downtime between tenants.
However, with between 50 and 150 properties over the course of 11 years (we've gained a lot the last few years), I would say I am able to refund the FULL deposit less than 1% of the time. But quite a few of our tenants ask us to have our carpet guy do the carpets and hold that from the deposit. If I discount those ones, then maybe 5%-10% of tenants get the rest of their deposit back. Of the rest, probably 70% just have cleaning, anywhere from 2 to 60 hours (we spent 56 hours washing candle smoke and wax off walls in one house). The last 20% have damages as well, ranging from $20 to $15,000 (puppy damage on that one).
Clean is really subjective. Rather than go into a novel of all the stories about tenants who said a house was "spotless" or "move in ready", only to discover a cleaning job we would rate as a C, I will just say that most tenants do not clean well enough, and extra cleaning is nearly always required. When we give a property to a tenant, the cleaning is always at least an A. When we get them back, we expect at least a B. These are subjective grades, but in our books, a 1500 square foot house that is a B will take 3 or fewer hours to get move-in ready. Anything less than that, we will typically not charge to the tenant. Anything more than that, though, is not clean enough, and we charge all the cleaning to the tenant.
On the other hand, there are definitely some landlords who hold your deposit and SAY they did more cleaning, when it wasn't necessary, or call normal wear and tear things "damage". My mom is practically a savant at cleaning/repairs, and she helped my aunt clean her rental house at move out time, and the landlord still tried to deduct for 8 or 9 hours of cleaning. She ended up getting it all back, but it was a fight to do so. So there are no surities.
As for returning the full deposit, it isn't just about the cleaning. Here is my checklist.
Proper notice given, and associated rent all paid
any billed late fees, bounced check fees, etc paid
clean house (including carpets)
no damages
all keys returned (including garage door remotes, mailbox key and pool/clubhouse key if applicable)
all of tenant's city/county utilities final bills paid (since they will lien the house, not the tenant in my area).
If all of those have happened, I refund the full deposit. If there is a question on whether damage was preexisting, I refer back to the sheet we require all tenants to fill out at move in. If the damage was listed there as preexisting, it doesn't get charged, if it isn't, then it does get charged. If they never returned the form, the damage gets charged.
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