tenant wants me to pay for 5 days when they left early

[Scott W.]

month-to-month that expired on june 30th. they left on june 23rd & said would still need to clean & were paid up until the 30th. I went in and made it rent ready (put in a lot of hours). walk thru on the 30th and they said, "you did a lot of work in here. you need to pay for the 5 days."

they did clean the place before leaving and were great tenants so I agreed but what would you do in this situation? I got the new tenants in on the 29th so had only 5 days vacancy.

[Kyle J.]

First, what does the lease say about vacating the premises? Mine requires that they: give the landlord all copies of keys and opening devices (i.e. garage door remotes); completely vacate the premises and surrender property to landlord; clean and deliver premises to landlord; remove all debris; give written notice to landlord of tenant's forwarding address; etc. Unless ALL of these things are done, they haven't properly vacated the premises. So check your lease to see what yours requires and whether or not they complied.

Second, do you (your lease) require they give you 30 days notice (or some other number of days)? If so, when did they give it? If they gave it on June 1st, they're responsible for rent for 30 days from then (assuming you require a 30 day notice). It wouldn't matter if they left on the 23rd or even one day after giving the notice. They're still responsible for rent up until the end of the 30 days (again, assuming you have a similar policy).

Bottom line...check your lease and see what it says. It should address this issue.