Landlord security deposit issue

My lease ended and was paid for unitl July 29th but my roommates and I had moved all of our furniture into a new apartment by July 11th. We scheduled a walk through with our landlord for July 23rd. When my roommate and I got to our condo we noticed that it had been freshly painted and that our place was now dirty (we had cleaned it after our moving out). Our landlord never requested permission nor was permission granted for anyone to enter our place (the unit was still ours until July 29th). Our landlady never showed up for that particular walk through. She called us later that night and apologized for now showing up and that her husband (who is also her "landlord agent") said that the place looked great which is why they had painters in it and that we would be getting our full security deposit back. We rescheduled a time to meet to give her the keys to the unit and to receive our security deposit. She cancelled 5 minutes before our scheduled appointment. We gave her our address so she could mail our check to us (two of us live together and our third roommate moved in with someone else). She is now charging us $225 for overall cleaning and for cleaning of the tile/grout. She also took it upon herself to divide the security deposit among the three roommates when the origional security deposit was written by one person. Two out of the three of us have received our "portion" with the fees taken out. Are we entitled to our full security deposit since she entered the place without permission during our lease? Any help would be appreciated.

I'm not sure where you are, but I'm a property manager and we are constantly telling owners they are not to enter and do any work at all until we have done the walk thru and notified you by registered mail of any additional cleaning to be done. You then have 24 hours to do that cleaning and if it is not done, then we can send someone in to do it at your expense. You do not have to be there for the walk thru but you do have to be notified and given the opportunity to clean before they send someone else in. If they have entered and done anything before you were notified it is voided....but it has to be sent certified mail to the last known address, so if you didn't give a forwarding and it went to the long way via forwarding you may be past your 24 hour notice. We normally count off 4 mailing days and then 1 more day for you to contact us for keys to go clean or to let us know you went back and cleaned. We then go in and see if the cleaning was done. I hope this helps. You can also contact your local government website for the landlord tenant act of your area. Good luck!

toolate4me, you sound as if you are in CA. Most states have no statute requiring a post move out inspection or any time for a tenant to return to clean the unit after an inspection. Once an inspection is done, the tenant has no opportunity to clean in most areas.

That said, if your rent was paid and you still had the keys, the unit was still in your possession. No one should have entered the unit until you returned possession.

What exactly did the statement say for deductions? Overall cleaning is not a proper deduction. Almost all states require itemized deductions so that you can tell why you are bing charged. Some further require that they state what neded cleaned, how long each task took, how much you are being charged per hour and who did the work. (Please list your state for more info on deductions and deposits.) If all she listed was overall cleaning, you need to challenge the deductions. Write a challenge letter stating that you disagree with the deductions and that you cannot tell from her statement what needed cleaned specifically, how long it took, what you were charged per hour and who did the work (some states do not allow a LL to charge for their own labor). State that the unit was clean before they allowed their painters into the unit and the cleaning charges were caused by their painting crew. (Cleaning tile or grout may be a legal charge.) Send the letter by certified mail, return receipt requested, and keep a copy. In your letter ask that she contact you within 10 days to settle this. Make sure you list the forwarding address.

One last thing, in my state, if you still had the keys to the unit, you still have possession and your rent cotinues to accrue until you either return the keys, the unit is officially declared abandoned, or you are evicted through a court. Mail those keys back now if you haven't already.

Also, normally the deposit check is to be written to the person who paid the deposit. If the three of you signed as a group on one lease, I would return the check addressed to all three of you and all signatures would be required to cash it.

We live in FL. We notified our LL that we had the unit cleaned before she allowed painters into our unit while the unit was still ours. She didn't respond well to that and has no intention of refunding us the money for overall cleaning. She charged us a total of $225...$100 for overall cleaning and $125 for cleaning of the tile and grout. It would cost us $100 to take this to court...so it's probably not worth it. It's more of the principle of the matter though...I get so frustrated when people take advantage of me. Grrr....

Overall cleaning is not a proper deduction and you would likely get this money back. As I said, cleaning costs must be itemized.

$125 for cleaning tile and grount sound excessive. Unless there were massive amounts of tile in that place, this is too much. Cleaning tile is a non-skilled labor type job. Anyone can do this job for minimum wage. The LL can't charge more than what you could hire someone to do this job for. Even if you paid someone a fair wage of $7.50 an hour to do this job, that would amount to over 16 hours needed to clean the grout to charge this much. Some states have penalties for wrongful withholding where you can receive 2 or 3 times the wrongfully withheld amount. Check it out.

I'm hoping someone can shed some light on the issue i'm having.

I moved out of my apartment a few days before our lease was finished. We were told that if the apartment was not clean that a cleaning service would be hired and the amount would be deducted from our security deposit. We decided to allow the landlord to hire someone due to the subjectivity of this statement in the lease. The landlord is now refusing to pay the cleaning company and has directed their requests to us to pay the bill! We have not received a detailed and itemized receipt within 30 days of notifying with the proper address and requests. We did receive one email that listed out expenses (not detailed) that totaled less than half our deposit and this was for the painting, which was due to small nail holes...doesn't a landlord always have to repaint apartments before renting them again? anyway, if that's the case, which i find unfair to begin with, then where's the rest of the deposit? The LL says that since the apartment needed to be cleaned that it was "non-rentable" for the next month and is charging us for that month's rent, even though we had already vacated the property. We left the keys to the apartment, and the only thing missing was a garage door opener that was not specifically linked to the apartment, in fact it was just to enter the parking garage that all residences had. I'm sure a replacement could've been issued, however that opener was returned shortly after the end of the lease. with all that being said, i'm trying to figure out how the LL can get away with this...no detailed receipt and just an arbitrary amount that he is claiming is due to extended tenancy when really it's due to a poor rental market!!!

Thoughts? Thank you!

You need to send a demand for your deposit to the LL immediately. Send it certified, return receipt requested, and keep a copy of it and the postcard that comes back. If the LL does not respond, file suit ahainst him in small claims court for your deposit. Also, please list your state for more advice specific to your state laws.

I agree. File in small claims ASAP.

That will resolve it quickly, easily and cheaply.

Thanks! That's what we're currently doing. I've already sent a certified letters requesting it, this was about 45 days after we requested over the phone and email. This is in CT, so i know there are security depost laws in place that i've researched. The only thing is that we have our lease and lease rider, however aren't able to easily access the signed copy. Will this be a poblem? I know we have a strong case.

Thanks for the help!

What use would your lease be? Unless there are clauses in there that you failed to meet when you moved out, state law covers when a security deposit statement must be mailed and the money refunded. The only reason you may need the lease is to prove that it expired. If the LL claims it hasn't in court, ask him to show your lease to the judge so he may see when it expired.