Dead lawn during California drought

[pharcyder]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA

Hello all,
I currently have a rental and the tenant is moving out at the end of this month. When they moved in, the grass was very beautiful and green; the grass is now gone/dead.

Governor Jerry brown signed an executive order to water companies (not residents) to reduce water consumption by 25%.

Here is the watering schedule for the city that this property is located:

"Irrigate after 5:00 p.m. or before 9:00 a.m. unless using drip irrigation or hand watering with an automatic shut-off hose nozzle.
Irrigation shall only occur on Saturdays and Wednesdays."

This watering schedule is adequate to maintain a green grass.

The tenant wants their full security deposit back. The lease states that the tenant is required to maintain the gardening and landscaping.

Do I keep the deposit? Do I return the deposit?

What do you think the courts would say?

 

[xylene]

You can withhold for the damages fromthe security deposit and sue for any damage above that.

I would strongly suggest you take this opportunity to install drought resistant landscaping because this water situation is worsening not improving.

If you insist on restoring the lawn please put in appropriate water saving irrigation systems.

 

[FarmerJ]

Its a total crapshoot as to if you could win or not if tenant took you to court over it. ( it may take a lot more proof than just dead grass alone since your state is short of water Are there any other adjacent properties that are in the same condition or not ? In the end it may be easier to just eat the cost of this loss but then when you replace that grass find one of them zoysia type of grasses ( I remember when they came out with them reading about homeowners who never watered the new grass and mowed 4 to 5 times the whole mowing season) to plant that are drought resistant and require little watering, it could even be a selling point when showing the place to prospects since ill assume you have them paying the water and sewer bill at this house you could sell the idea , less work to maintain, lower water bills etc. ( the best reason to get this lawn replaced with one that is drought resistant is that in the future many areas of your state might have to go under total bans when it comes to watering grasses and if you didn't replace with a drought resistant grass and it died while under a watering ban your not going to have any recourse against the tenant. ) will the water utility give you usage numbers that could show if the tenant had been watering compared to so called average use on a meter where a home owner did water the lawn ?