Possible illegal terms in rental lease

[Nat C.]

I am on the opposite side of the court with this question. I am asking as a tenant, not a landlord.

I rent an apartment and was on a 6 month lease that just expired. The landlord gave me a new 3 month lease to sign.

They appear to have used a standard residential tenancy lease but have added some funky clauses under additional terms. One of them states-

"Please note that a $250 fee for painting and $100 for cleaning will be automatically deducted from the deposit".

So in other words, even if you leave the apartment immaculately clean and there is no damage to paint on walls, they're still going to nab you for $350.

As a landlord with many properties, I would never put such a thing into a lease and it seems kind of illegal to me. 

Does anyone know?

'

[Kyle Hipp]

That would be an illegal clause in my state of Wisconsin and I am quite sure it is also illegal in Florida and all other states. Standard law is that only deductions from the security deposit for damages would be anything beyond normal wear and tear. You should be able to look up Florida state statues on landlord/tenant laws to find the specific statute.  You can definitely request that that clause be removed and I would by showing landlord the statute. The landlord could refuse. You would then have two options in my mind. 1 would  be to insist that the landlord remove the illegal clause and risk having landlord issue a nonrenewal, which i believe is legal in your state as it is i mine (just not renewing). 2. Would be to sign the  lease with the aforementioned illegal clause. Once you decide to move out, give proper notice and inform the landlord that if they deduct any costs from your security deposit that are not legal your will be taking them to court. Most states have a penalty clause that awards the tenant 2-3 times the security deposit amount to the tenant.