Security deposit refund: pissed off tenants

[Kazi R.]

I have a tenant move out recently from a 4plex that I bought last year. She left me a horrible mess! I am spending about 4k to fix up the place. She noted no defect with the unit on the move-in inspection check list (I inherited her as a tenant). I decided to keep her $600, which is way lower than what it's costing me. Now she is hopping mad! Wants to take me to court etc! How do you deal with a situation like this? She is saying that the unit was in worse shape when she moved in, but I have no way of verifying it!

How do you handle situations like this? I am almost tempted to give her the $600 back as going to court etc will not be worth my time, but at the same time I just don't want to give in!  I have not really dealt with situations like this, so any thoughts will be appreciated.

[Account Closed]

First check your state laws regarding security deposits.

If we have a tenant that trashes a property, we cannot just automatically forfeit their security deposit and we have 30 days to send the tenants an itemized list of charges against their deposit.

In Texas if an owner does not follow proper procedure even though the tenant trashed the property, the tenant can go back after the owner for triple the security deposit plus attorney fees and court costs.

If you accidentally did not follow your state laws, I would immediately refund the total deposit.

If you followed your state laws, then you should have at least contractor invoices for the work done to justify the expenses against her security deposit. Again, please be sure you are following your state laws. In Texas we cannot charge for normal wear and tear.

Tenants normally and routinely challenge charges against her security deposit.

We typically take on average 300 move-in pictures and 300 without pictures plus video. You cannot have too many pictures.

It is fairly easy today for an owner to take lots of move-in and move-out pictures and video off your smart phone. You can upload your videos to YouTube and keep them private, until you need them. Also, you can create a folder in dropbox for each of your rental properties and store the move-in and moveout pictures.

When we do charges against the tenants security deposit, we send them a copy of move-in picture with a copy of the move-out picture, this greatly reduces tenants protesting the charges against her security deposit.

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