Tenant sues trumptman!
Yes ladies and gentlemen, I will be going to small claims court for the second time in my life. The first time I was the plaintiff and won a $4,500 judgement.
This time I will be the defendant in a lawsuit. The former tenant is upset that after her dogs trashed my carpet, she didn't get any of her $800 security deposit back when she left my rental house.
For some reason (not court costs it mentions specifically that the amount doesn't include court costs) she sued for her deposit of $1150, even when she only had a deposit of $800.(Since I have clear documentation of the $800, her credibility is already dinged) Since the costs of repairing the house exceeded her deposit, she will now enjoy a counter-suit to the tune of about $900.
In some ways this suit isn't even going to be fair for her and she must be seriously deluded. When you have $1700 of repair costs, which she received an invoice for, including $1200 for carpet costs, you would think you would be counting your lucky stars.
Instead she will come in perhaps thinking she will get her full $800 deposit, and instead leave oweing $900. Such is life when you are clueless.
Nick
This time I will be the defendant in a lawsuit. The former tenant is upset that after her dogs trashed my carpet, she didn't get any of her $800 security deposit back when she left my rental house.
For some reason (not court costs it mentions specifically that the amount doesn't include court costs) she sued for her deposit of $1150, even when she only had a deposit of $800.(Since I have clear documentation of the $800, her credibility is already dinged) Since the costs of repairing the house exceeded her deposit, she will now enjoy a counter-suit to the tune of about $900.
In some ways this suit isn't even going to be fair for her and she must be seriously deluded. When you have $1700 of repair costs, which she received an invoice for, including $1200 for carpet costs, you would think you would be counting your lucky stars.
Instead she will come in perhaps thinking she will get her full $800 deposit, and instead leave oweing $900. Such is life when you are clueless.
Nick
Comments
have fun in court.
Originally posted by shetline
Now you can see one of the reasons I'm not so excited about the idea of investing in real estate.
Far too often rental property brings with it a different mentality of people.
Fellows
We were moving out because my parents were getting back together, and Mom was upset because the landlord wasn't giving all the deposit back. There WAS some sort of damage from us living there, so he was justified in holding some of it. My mom when on a tirade about how it was unfair for him to keep that money and she deserved to have it back.
I asked her, "But isn't that what the security deposit is for? We messed up, so they get to keep some of it. That makes sense to me."
I got it then, and I was only in Junior High. Of course, my mom doesn't always think through things in the most logical way.
Originally posted by shetline
Now you can see one of the reasons I'm not so excited about the idea of investing in real estate.
Can't imagine any of you guys being " slum landlords "
Originally posted by shetline
Now you can see one of the reasons I'm not so excited about the idea of investing in real estate.
Why? The house makes $200 a month above the mortgage payment. Since she rented for 6 months that was $1200. Next time I just learn to pick tenants a little better.
Likewise the value of the house was depressed when I bought it because it was cosmetically really ugly. I purchased it at only $112,000. It is now appraised at about $165-170,000.
I don't see how that's not anything to be excited about. Fear of risk leads to not taking any. Without risk there is no gain. Of course you make mistakes, but how are you going to learn and avoid those mistakes in the future if you won't even take the risk?
That is why you see me rail on here against the mentality by folks, who even though they make good money, buy expensive toys that depreciated quickly, relative to their income. Even if they have 401k's and things of that nature, what they don't have is experience with handling financial risk. Instead they take their pathetic little gain of 5-9% on their managed mutual fund or 401k and feel good that they didn't really risk anything. (Though they still can lose money) I see this pattern OFTEN throughout my daily life.
Anyway I had chosen at the time to write off the loss, but now, amazingly enough thanks to her own stupidity, I have the opportunity to get it back.
Nick
Originally posted by Alex London
Quite often though some landlords seem to view the deposit as easy money that they get to keep. When my wife started her medical career she and a friend rented a property and kept it pretty damn clean, when they came to move out my mother in-law cleaned the place completely, over 2 days. Something you should know about her, she's a cleaning obsessive, when we go to her house it's like the place has been sterilised and yet she still walks about picking up invisible bits of dirt. So of course the landlord claimed that my wife's flat was filthy and that he had to get professional cleaners in at great expense, ie, the same amount as the deposit. What a racket. I'm not accusing you Trumptman of this at all, it seems like your tenant thinks that she should have some easy money.
No problem but I will mention why some landlords can get away with that stuff, so maybe some folks you know won't have that happen in the future. First and foremost is documenting the state of the carpet. There are landlords that declare wear and tear from age of carpet to be damage. If there were any pets involved then the tenant is at a district disadvantage but often a small percentage of landlords try to get tenants to pay for new carpet just because it is old.
Regardless of whether it has been vacuumed though, or God Forbid, attempted at steam cleaning via one of those rented carpet cleaners (they suck) most landlords charge for a good professional carpet cleaning from a cleaner that has a large van based carpet cleaner. (Those rule)
Likewise a lot of tenants get screwed on paint if they stay in the unit/house for just a short period of time. Because it is hard hard to define "wear and tear" on paint, most states use a formula to determine what percentage of full repainting costs a tenant is responsible for. (not spot, full)
If you only stay 6 months, you are responsible for ALL repainting costs. There are lots of landlords who charge for this because there are tons of commercial apartment painters who will do the whole unit for like $300-400. Lots of college kids get screwed this way because they want to move and have new roomates every 6 months. (semester) I don't know if it is really screwing them because lot of folks want new paint when they come in and the law does allow it. It can simply be avoided by staying up to a year at which point your responsibility has dropped down to 50%. Still most folks won't go to small claims over $150, so lots of landlords just charge it to them.
The tenant who has stayed multiple years are often the ones who owe no repainting costs, yet they are the ones least likely to protest paying the costs. They often are charged but if they sued, they would get every dime back.
Another issue is holes from hanging pictures. There are landlords that charge as much as $5 per hole to be filled.
Nick
My management company has always been great (if not militaristic in their business approach) and I wonder what they will consider normal wear after 2 years. Could really go either way; my roommate and I were great tenants.
Originally posted by groverat
I just moved out of a place I had lived for 2 years, I'm eager to see just how much of my security deposit ($980) I get back.
My management company has always been great (if not militaristic in their business approach) and I wonder what they will consider normal wear after 2 years. Could really go either way; my roommate and I were great tenants.
Two years in California makes you not responsible for any repainting costs. (Don't know about Texas though)
If you were a typical tenant you would likely need about 5 hours of cleaning on top of what you did. Most tenants don't clean ovens, lift the top and clean stover burners, window sills, shower tile, etc. $50.
Professional carpet cleaning. $80-$120.
Spot painting and hole patching (Assume about 25-30 holes)
I would say about $100-$125.
That would be my "guess-stimate" on say a two bedroom apartment with absolutely nothing left inside, clean, vacuumed, no walls repainted a different color and no yard work.
So I'll estimate high and say you are probably out about $300.
If Texas is different and they can charge you for a full repaint, add $400-600 more to that.
Nick
I did have a landlord posture like he was going to kick us out of there for his fireworks. It was lame, we knew they didn't want to follow through on that and they could have just asked us to stop first. Of course, we denied everything, stopped and they never said anything about it again. I also had one landlord who was always coming into the apartment too, didn't follow the 24 hour notice rule for non-emergencies. Not malicious but definitely annoying.
Also they aren't very good at yard work ( nothing ) which is in their contract.
On the plus side they are clean, quiet, pay on time, and don't punch holes in the wall. So I do their yard work.