Landlord Question and Answer Forum

For our rental house, we had damage to hardwoods and carpet padding. For security deposit we want to give accounting to the tenant for the damage estimate, BUT, the ACTUAL work was above and beyond: for the hardwoods we refinished the entire floor and professionally sealed it and the for the carpet pad we actually replaced the carpeting, too. The tenant is threatening to take us to small claims court. If they do, is the magistrate/judge going to take issue that what we listed in the accounting is different from the actual work performed... even by different companies? It *seems* okay to be since it's a "superset" of work, above and beyond the damage.

Peter, I'll say it again - "you can only charge for expense that it took to return the flooring back to where it was less carpet replacement." Having one company give you a bid (which you want to submit to the court) and having another do the work will more than likely help you in loosing you case and going home with nothing and the courts may award the tenant some $$$ instead due to your actions. On another note, you want to charge tenant for the pad. Good luck on that. The pad is as old as the rug, if not older. Consider: Forget the pad/rug replacement cost. Charge them for having the odor removed, and fixing (%) the hardwood floor that was damaged. If redoing the whole floor cost $1000 and the portion that was damage was 10%, charge them $100. Keep in mind that most courts don't look kindly at landlords. We're the bad guys. We have a reputation of over chargeing tenants, for reasons I won't go into. So if you are taken to court, you better have all you is dotted and Ts crossed. And even than, depending on the judge, you have a 50/50 chance of winning. If I was the Judge and saw your info, I would have awarded the tenant the securiry deposit and probably extra $$$. I'd like to hear what others have to say about this.This is a great topic to discuss.Good luck.

Posted by Bob R, CA on Sunday, April 29, 2012