Florida-Tenant broke lease and left 2 days later than stated

[Frank Johnson]

Hello,

I gave a tenant about 60 days notice that his lease will not be renewed. He said he would not pay his last month. I told him I will keep the deposit then. A couple of days later he asked if he could leave a month prior to his lease expiring and receive his deposit. I told him if he was out prior he may get the deposit back(after reading I now know this was not best practice lol). When he moved he was 2 days past the date he stated he would be out. I’m only keeping 2 days worth of rent from his deposit not including a small mess I had to clean. Do I have grounds to hold part of the deposit? And what should I have done and what should I do in the future to better protect my investment? Thank you all I advance.

[Adam Martin]

When the tenant leaves if there is work do do that will cost under what the deposit is then I hire it out so I have a receipt and can deduct for it easily.  If they owe more than the deposit I usually do it myself.  My lease states that I charge $40/hour for any work I have to do which I think seems reasonable compared to what I would hire someone for but many on here have said that may not hold up in court.  I would keep the 2 days as that is reasonable and return the rest.  Someone on here also advised I include the holdover fee per day in my original lease which I will be doing for all future ones to keep questions like this easy.  I plan on having rents set to double the daily rate since I have usually arranged time off work and possibly contractors which I now have to reschedule so there needs to be a penalty on top of daily rates.