Carpet Issue with Tenant

[peacefulandcalm]

State: Indiana - City: Indianapolis area

We own a townhouse in Indiana and our tenants just moved out. Prior to moving out they replaced all of the carpet in the home without contacting us and removed the old carpet. In theory - a nice thing to do. However the installation was TERRIBLE! Cuts in the carpet, seams everywhere, baseboards are all slashed, etc. They installed the cheapest carpet possible and it is not even the same color. The old carpet was better quality also.

Background info:

The old carpet was 5 years old and they lived there for four years.

They had 2 large dogs who ruined the carpet.

Question:

Do we have grounds to withhold the security deposit, document the carpet / baseboard damage and go to small claims court for the additional cost? I know that the lease states "normal wear and tear" and while I recognize it is new carpet, the carpet that was installed previously was not cut and installed poorly. Additionally, they will not release any information regarding where the carpet was purchased, brand, etc or the information regarding who installed it.

Thanks for your time and any advice that you may have for us!

Take photos of the new carpet's installation. Get a statement from a carpet installer as to the quality of the install job. Ask if there is any way to repair the damage. (If so, charge them to repair it.) If not and he will wirite a statement that the new carpet is poorly installed, then you may charge a depreciated amount for the old carpet that they removed without permission. Check your tax schedule to see how many years you depreciated the old carpet. You can only charge a depreciated value. If you depreciate over 5 years, you can't charge them anything since the carpet is already 5 years old. If you use 7, you can charge them 2/7 the cost of carpet. If you use 10 years, you can charge them 5/10 (or half) the cost of carpet.

Additionally, you can charge them for any damage to the baseboards since that has nothing to do with the carpet itself. They are responsible for any damages done to the property.