I recently bought a duplex (my first property) late Jan. 2020 and inherited tenants for one of the units. The tenants had a lease from September 2018 - August 2019 and were on a month to month after that. I gave them a 60-day notice after closing, to get into the property to fix it and bring up to market rents. These tenants specifically had lived there for 8 years and gone through a couple of different landlords, but this most recent lease had the deposit I received at closing.

To layout the problem, the property was built in 1961, and as far as I can see, wasn't updated a whole lot in the unit they were living in. The tenants themselves had been living there for 8 years, but the deposit was from the last lease about 1.5 years ago. This is my first time dealing with deposits. After the tenants moved out I realized how dirty it truly was. It seems they neglected cleaning altogether. There are cobwebs all around the ceiling in every room, the wood floors have various amounts of "wear and tear" some look burnt, most of the blinds are either broken, missing, or bent. There is a skinny wall at the end of the one hallway that has a hole and seems to be "soft" (you can push it in with little resistance). The kitchen has grease stains on the ceiling, blinds, and the countertop looks ruined. I had to remove a piece of their furniture myself. The list goes on.

I guess my question is what can I even charge for or take out of the deposit. Since the property seems to have had deferred maintenance what can I attribute to that? Do I charge for what looks like 8 years of "wear and tear" or 1.5years (the lease term of the deposit in question)? I don't have an idea of what it looked like prior to the beginning of this recent lease nor the beginning of the tenants' residency, but with people living in the unit, it is hard to assess the condition. I've tried my best to educate myself on Minnesota law around this subject. I even have the "Landlord's guide to Minnesota Law" by HOME Line book, but everything I read seems so vague. It seems even less straight forward with inherited tenants. I've seen things state $40/hr for cleaning is reasonable, other things state anything over $126 of cleaning needs to be documented.

In the end, to be honest, the deposit will not make or break me, but as someone who is new to this, I want to not be naive and do my due diligence. Pictures added for visuals. The problems aren't horrible, but to me, they should be chargeable.

Any advice or additional advice is greatly appreciated!