Reasonable fees for Security Deposit retention in Arlington, Tx

[James M Smith]

Ok, lets get the "it depends on your state/local municipality" out of the way.  I am looking for a more general quesiton of what is a reasonable hourly rate (or per job) to charge for DIY repairs.  

For example, if a tenant chews up a few wall corners moving their things out and I am capable to doing the work myself what is a fair rate to charge, without waisting one of my contractor's time for a bid?  How about garbage collection/clean up of items left in a garage?  

Yes, I know if I pay somone to do it that is a tangable cost that I can easily justify by providing the invoice.  But should I be forced to work for free because I would prefer to save the out of pocket cost?  I am not trying to justify raking someone over the coals, just looking for what LLs with more experience in turnovers and SD retention think is a best practice.

We have been fortuniate that we have now only had 2 tenants move out of our homes in the last 7 years, one was our first tenant ever who finished her masters and moved for work and the other was an inheriated tenant of a home we bought in the 2Q of 2017.  The first one left the place imaculate (100% security depost refund) and this last one had leaks occuring for months that she never reported, and actually moved the moisture alarms without thinking to give us a call and notify us, as well as kids with permenant markers, nail polish left on the countertops, sheetrock damage, carpet trashed, oven gross, you get the picture.  

Normally, if security deposit retention is required, our plan would be to hire out the labor required to get the property ready again and just take it out of the security deposit and return the remainder.  However, in this instance the carpet alone was twice the SD and we are fully capable of doing the work to get the property back up and running.

We include the below text with our move out check list as a way to encourage tenants to ensure these items are clean and/or addressed prior to move out.  We also dont expect to charge the full amount in all instances.  For instance, we are charging $100 for 3 hours of bagging trash that was left in the garage and loose in the drive way and $50 for cleaning the oven, which was filty on the inside (not the $75 stated in the move out checklist).  

In summary, we want to do the right thing and save money by not hiring out work we can do ourselve.  As such we would love to get the opinion of the more seasoned investors as to how we can acheive this without putting us at risk of looking like we are gouging to a Judge if we are ever challenged on our itemized invoice.

For those of you who hung on this long I have included a copy of the invoice being sent for reference. I would love to get feedback that is specific to these items if anyone has an opinion.

[James M Smith]

Originally posted by @Michele Fischer:

You can use whatever rate feels fair, but be aware that if the tenant challenges it, all DIY work will most likely get thrown out.  We usually opt for a rate slightly lower than what it costs to hire the same work.

I would remove the garbage disposal before you re-rent.

I would remove the charges for light bulbs and mowing and add a comment at the bottom that you could have but did not charge for them, to show yourself as reasonable rather than petty.

Are you suggesting to not provide a garbage disposal or to replace the existing one?  In this area, garbage disposals are considered standard issue.  I see in your bio that you and your husband focus on low income housing.  However, our cheapest property is valued around 200k, in some areas this wont buy you a hole in the ground but in Texas it still buys a pretty nice home, so the expectations are a little different. Honestly, your returns are probably better but we find, in general, that we are more comfortable in the range we are in, for now.

Mowing was a cost actually incurred by our landscaping contractor and, in this area anyway, the city can be pretty quick to levy fines for having un-mowed grass (especially when it is knee high).  Also, it was knee high the day after they moved out, its not like we waited a week or two for things to get out of hand then tried charging them.

Lightbulbs are about $3 each but require a trip to the local Hardware store and time to remove the light shade, etc.   I feel like it might be taken as patronizing if I say not only are you not getting your SD back and you owe us an additional $2k but hey since I am a nice guy I'm going to wave $70 in fees I could have charged...  I just assume charge it all and if they want to question it I can accommodate at that point in time.

Do you not have the expectation that if you provide a property with all working lightbulbs that they give it back with all working lightbulbs?  Mind you, I wouldn't charge for 1 or 2 but where do you draw the line, 10, 15, all of them?  Not asking to be a jerk, it is just things like this that most don't consider until it seem like too much to them and everyones threshold is different.  This is exactly what this post was about, polling the general investor base to see what "on average" is considered reasonable.

Thank you for your input!