Landlord refusing to return deposit!

[LD7810]

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

Hi all,

I recently moved out of a rental property. My landlord resides out of state and sent his contractor in place to do a move out inspection. At the end of the inspection the contractor wrote and signed a receipt stating the house was in good shape, less any wear and tear. My landlord is now refusing to return the deposit because the same contractor sent him a bill for $3845(holy crap!) for painting the whole house, cleaning, and carpet cleaning. He states the house was a total wreck. I did take pictures with my cell phone. Unfortunately, that phone was lost before I could print them. When I take him to court, in lieu of the pictures, will the written receipt from the contractor serve as enough proof that there was no damages. Thanks

 

[Zigner]

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

Hi all,

I recently moved out of a rental property. My landlord resides out of state and sent his contractor in place to do a move out inspection. At the end of the inspection the contractor wrote and signed a receipt stating the house was in good shape, less any wear and tear. My landlord is now refusing to return the deposit because the same contractor sent him a bill for $3845(holy crap!) for painting the whole house, cleaning, and carpet cleaning. He states the house was a total wreck. I did take pictures with my cell phone. Unfortunately, that phone was lost before I could print them. When I take him to court, in lieu of the pictures, will the written receipt from the contractor serve as enough proof that there was no damages. Thanks

We cannot guess if your statement will be enough proof. Will it be helpful? Surely it will. But we can't guess the outcome of a case.

 

[FarmerJ]

How long did you live there ?

 

[LD7810]

How long did you live there ?

I lived there for 2 years.

 

[Gail in Georgia]

(sounds like the contractor felt the "less wear and tear" added up to over 3K!).

Keep in mind that every state gives a landlord a certain amount of time to return the security deposit or provide the former tenant with the status regarding their security deposit. While some states require a walk through at move out, it is not unusual that further damage above normal wear and tear may be found later after this walk through. Thus the walk through is not necessarily the "end all" to finding this.

You can, of course, present the contractors statement to a court. The landlord perhaps will have pictures taken prior to whatever repair/cleaning work done in an attempt to justify their cost. The judge will decide who is "more right".

Gail

 

[FarmerJ]

You said you were charged for painting, repainting fees are hard to figure out, see if you smoked in the unit even if the lease allowed it there might have been extra prep as in need for a primer to be used first which would be fair to charge you for but not necessarily the the paint it self , See things like paint have a useful life - depreciated value. Since you lived there for two years you would have used up the useful life of that paint job , SO when it was broken down did the statement say X amount for patching nail holes & X amount for primer X amount for paint ? If you really did not leave a mess and want to challenge the amount held back then Id say to start with paint job because even if you did not smoke in the unit you did use that paint jobs so called useful life. Carpet , if you left it dirty yes its reasonable to charge you for cleaning it. As far as the rest goes was there anything listed that would be normal wear and tear and not something that would have been damaged in any other way ?