Tenant accidentally paid this month after moving out, but damage

[Crystal W.]

We had tenants (roommates) who were supposed to be out as of November 22.  The one I had contact with told me that night he would not be done.  Then on November 23, when he brought the key to me, he informed me his roommate still had a ton of stuff there.  After several days of telling them to get it and pay an overage fee of $250, contact with the second roommate stopped (clearly did not want to pay the overage).  Roommate one emailed me a letter to relinquish the property, however, we have damage beyond what the deposit will support, "holdover" days since the home was not technically vacated, and now, we have to pay to haul everything away AND get it cleaned.

Well, lo and behold, original tenant who we had contact with, had rent on autopay and we received payment today.  

Is it acceptable to subtract the additional costs from these monies since I already have a full accounting done?  Or am I bound to refund the entire payment and then sue them for damages and holdover rent?  

Note: our realtor confirmed that there was no proration clause in the lease, so we could technically hit them for an entire month of rent for the holdover time, but we were only going to charge $250 as of last week, but now I can't even get someone to take the stuff for free, so there are additional fees.

(New landlord, and trying to do it on the up and up!)

[Ramsey Blankenship]

Cara seems to be a wealth of knowledge and likely knows exactly what to do, however;

Your a new Landlord. Get used to cutting your loses and pushing forward instead of waisting time looking back.

99% of the time neither person wants to go to court - they simply want to move on with their lives. If they have not been in contact with you, they likely will not call you to recover the rent because they know they left the house a wreck. Or they will call back to recover the rent, and you will have the chance to come to an agreement: they clean the place up and move their stuff out and you pro rate the rent for the overage days, or they leave their stuff and you charge them the months rent and keep the security deposit to cover cleanup and repair.

I have had plenty of awkward endings with tenants, and never once did it end in court. Keep the money unless they make it right.