I'd like to know if I'm getting screwed here. It certainly sounds like I am, but I could be biased. After moving out of a duplex, we got hit with some charges. They are: 100 bucks to remove a satellite dish 100 bucks for some crayon marks on a wall in the closet 100 bucks for a broken drawer (this is a small drawer - there's no way they replaced the thing, but even so, I doubt it would cost that much). Also, we moved out of the place early, and they even found a renter like a couple of weeks prior to the scheduled end of our lease - yet they still charged us for the whole month. Is that normal?
Yes, you will be charged until the end of your lease no matter if you occupy or not. If you had a satellite dish still on there then they will charge you to remove it. If you incurred any other damages that were not listed on the damage sheet when you moved in then they are fair game. But the thing is, that you really don't have to pay them unless they are in excess of your deposit. If they are in excess of your deposit then they will have to take you to court to get the money and that would only be for excessive damage.
Most places charge set charges for rental repairs after move-out. In truth, they probably used in house maintenance to make the repairs, and it didn't cost that much. However, it's kind of like getting a car repair -- you pay the book price for the repair. They have the right to charge you for this type of repair, and the prices don't sound horribly out of line. My guess is that if you left crayon marks on the wall and the sattelite dish, you didn't leave the place in exactly spotless shape -- there were probably other issues they didn't charge you for. They probably picked the three most obvious issues, and called it even. Was your deposit, by any chance, $300? If you left these damages, it isn't worth disputing these charges. You aren't going to win, and it will make it more difficult for you to get a good rental reference from them. FYI -- If you want your deposit back, spend a few hours after you move out and give the place a good cleaning. Spot clean the carpet, clean any spots on the walls, toothpaste any holes in the wall, buy cheap stove reflectors from the dollar store, etc. In your case, windex off the crayon, rig the drawer to work, and remove the #@$! dish! (Or, you can find a maid to give it a good cleaning for $60-80 or so.) If you leave it clean, the landlord will overlook any minor problems. By spending a few hours of work, I've gotten the whole deposit back pretty much every time.
Of course, some landlords are just jerks. When I was married, my then-wife once spent almost a week making the apartment we were moving out of spotless. The place was honestly cleaner when we left than it was when we moved in. And yet, the apartment people still kept our deposit. Since then, I don't obsess over cleaning when I move out. I get the place about as clean as I can without spending too much time on it. Personally, I think I leave places as clean as they were when I moved in, but more often than not, I don't get my deposit back. Usually, the company doesn't even make an attempt to pretend to return my deposit (i.e. they don't send me a letter explaining why they aren't giving me my deposit back). So, I just try and find places with small required deposits. I often think the apartment management people must get some sort of bonus for keeping the most deposits. It's sort of the same when something breaks. Invariably, they'll find some way to try and blame me for it, no matter how ludicrous their claim. So, I've gotten to the point where I don't even expect my deposit back, and if something breaks, I just fix it myself since it's probably going to come out of my pocket anyway, even if there's no way I could've broken the item (and when they fix it, they'll find a way to charge me way more than it should cost).
Mr. Paige, you are of course right, some can be jerks. My last place charged $50 for spots on the carpet in the entryway that I'm pretty sure would be normal wear and tear on 2-3 year old carpet. But that's all they took off, and I got $250 back, including the refundable part of the pet deposit. My thought is that if you don't leave them many excuses, they'll either overlook the minor things, or hit you with a charge or two on principles sake. I'm not advocating steam cleaning the carpet or re-painting the walls, but a few hours invested in cleaning to save a $250 deposit is a pretty fair investment. Obviously, you don't want to leave big things behind that are going to cause the owner/manager to work to fix it. Always remove things like the sat dish, crayon marks, furniture you don't want, trash, etc. Any of these items is a clear sign for the landlord to take the deposit. One other thought on broken items -- If you report something, (like a broken drawer, windowshade, etc.) before you move out (preferably before you give notice), they'll usually just send the maintenance guy to fix it. You may even use the "normal wear and tear" phrase when reporting it if you can. If it's obviously you're fault, or if the owners are jerks, you may get the charged anyway, but it shoud be less). Chances are, they'll just view it as maintenance, and you'll never hear anything from them. Wait till you move out and they inspect, and it becomes a deposit issue.
Excellent advice from everyone. I have had landlords who were so picky they charged an outrageous price to replace burnt out lightbulbs. I have learned that when I do my initial walkthrough before taking possesion of the apartment to mark down ANYTHING that is wrong with the place including normal wear and tear on the carpet. I can be pretty anal about it to although when I go to moveout I have a good account of how I recieved the place compared to how I left it. Good Luck
dc - we've rented at several places, and this is the first time something like this has happened (big charges for stupid things). We're usually very good about cleaning. The crayon marks were small and in the CLOSET. We're talking 2 minutes of touch-up paint here. Sure, we should have caught it before we moved out, but a hundred bucks? The drawer was like that when we moved in, but we missed it in our initial walk-through (mainly b/c she stood right there while we were doing it and we felt rushed). Still, it wouldn't cost a hundred bucks to fix, and I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't even fix it. During this walk-through we pointed out several things and she was like "oh, don't worry about that, it's normal wear-and-tear". One time she was showing the place, and she wasn't sure if we'd completely moved out yet or not. She calls us and asks us if we planned to clean the bathroom, which we'd already done. Then she tells us that the broiler is filthy - we never even used it! Now the satellite dish is a little different. We're really not sure why it HAD to be removed. DirecTV actually wants you to leave it when you move out so they can try to get the next person to get their service. We asked her if it was okay to have a dish, and she said sure. We didn't ask her specifically about removing it. Still, seems like she could have noticed it was still up (as I said previously, we moved out weeks before our lease was up so she could try to get a new renter) and just asked us to take it down. Instead, she charges us a hundred bucks. We still got like 800 bucks back though from our deposit. I'm not going to say anything to her about it based on comments in this thread. Thanks everyone for your input.
The way I learned things, you aren't supposed to pay for the end of your lease if the landlord finds another renter. The only thing you would be responsible for would be the months it would be unoccupied for and the difference between yours and the other persons rent if they pay less than you did.
I believe this is true - under law the landlord cannot concurrently assess rent to two different parties for the same unit.
The landlord may not necessarily be able to charge you for the rest of your lease if they find another renter (some can, depending on the lease specifics), but they can charge you a reletting fee I believe. Sometimes that is a set fee + one months rent. There should be details in your lease that outline what would be owed if you broke the lease.
