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Updated almost 8 years ago,
What would you do? Security deposit question
1) If the carpet's already old enough to need replacement within the next year, would you deduct carpet damages from a tenant's deposit?
2) How do you calculate the "reasonable wear and tear" on carpet (or other assets) if a tenant has lived there for a long time?
Bought a property last year with existing tenants. They are buying their own house now after 3 yrs of living there; did the walk-through and there is considerable damage / staining in the carpets so they will need to be replaced. I knew that the carpet was old and was planning to replace it sometime within the next year, but there's enough damage that it now needs to be replaced before I can re-rent the unit.
I am thinking to deduct a reasonable % of replacement cost from the deposit. i.e. if typical carpet lifespan is 5 yrs, and there was a year of life remaining in these carpets, then I would deduct 20% of the replacement cost. However... apparently the carpets have been around since the unit was built in 2007.
So, bit of a conundrum... don't want to take advantage of a tenant's deposit for a replacement that was definitely going to happen soon anyway -- but also not able to re-rent the unit immediately because of the damage caused by the tenant. What would you do?