What to deduct from security deposit when tenant moves out?

Question

Hello.

I am a newbie with rental properties and currently have a few.

I am uncertain what is considered a normal wear and tear when tenant moves out.

My lease states tenant should leave the property in "ready to move in" condition as they moved in.

When my previous tenant moved out there were several holes in the wall ranging from nails to anchor size holes. Walls were dirty and would require painting to get it to "ready to move in" condition.

What level of dirty wall and holes in the wall do you consider it normal wear and tear?

If you end up getting some or all walls require paint touch up or painting do you deduct this cost from the security deposit?

Thank you.

Jennifer T. · Answer

For me, it would depend on how long they lived there.  I've had to repaint a house interior twice after a tenant left.  The first time, they'd only lived there 18 months and I'd had the house professionally repainted only about 3 years earlier.  The walls weren't dirty, but they had nicks, dents, chipped paint, and holes EVERYWHERE!  One of the holes was large.  It looked like someone had been thrown into the wall.  We initially tried to just patch and touch-up the areas.  But there was too much of it and the end result looked like patchwork.  We totally repainted the interior and most definitely charged them for both that and all the wall repair.

The other tenant had lived there for 10 years.  They were such gross people.  The entire walls everywhere (except above head height) were filthy.  Really filthy.  Like, "I don't even understand how it can get that bad across the entire wall" filthy.  In one of the bedrooms, someone had apparently dropped a can of soda...potentially years ago...and it had sprayed the soda onto the wall and never been wiped up.  However, I didn't take anything out of the security deposit for the repainting for a couple reasons.  When I bought the house three years earlier, they were inherited tenants and the walls were already filthy and I knew going in that I'd need to repaint whenever these people moved out.  And, while I think it's ridiculous the walls got that bad even over 10 years, they still lived there for 10 years and repainting after a long tenancy like that should be expected.

Jeffrey Chang · Answer

Thank you for your input.

I certainly want my tenant to live as long as possible and so I don't want to restrict my tenant from hanging things on the wall.

What about the anchor nail size holes in the wall?

What about the dirty wall?  I am not talking about small areas that need touch up.  I literally had to paint the entire house and it costed me $1,100.

Drew Gedemer · Answer

Ready to move in quality is to ambiguous.  Typically we don't specify holes in the wall and typically we would have our painter fill them (which is a cost to us).  Simple ware and tear to me.

If you do want to have them consider getting your rental "rent ready" I have seen people specify specific move out conditions in the lease.  Things like patch holes, professionally wash carpets, etc.  In my market that seems overkill, and likely would give the tenants a bad taste in their mouth if we asked them to do that.

To John's point, we also want them there forever!  We just resigned one tenant.  Just make sure to do inspection once per year to make sure the property is in decent shape and create workorders needed at that time.

John Warren · Answer

@Jeffrey Chang I suspect you will have trouble deducting any of this unless in your lease you specified that your tenants were not allowed to mount things in the wall. Some land lords do this and force tenants to use adhesive mounting instead. I personally would rather my tenants "move in" as I want them to stay forever! I chalk up repainting as a cost of doing business.