heres a quick run down…
me and my ex of coarse got a divorce, we both could not afford the apartment with out 2 incomes. our lease agreement stated as long as we gave 30 or more days of a written letter we were entitled to our safety deposit. we gave more then 30 days and left the place spotless except for one glass light fixture i payed for out of pocket to replace and for one stair had damage to the rug due to our cat. we had a $300 non refundable pet deposit. well its been 3 months since we had our final walk though and signed papers stating the rug was damaged and he has still not returned our $625 safety deposit. I’ve called multiple times which he has answered but keeps stating he is trying to find the best quote to have the rub replaced…
is there a time limit he can keep the deposit with held?
shouldn’t the pet deposit be the only thing liable for the damage and not the safety deposit?
That sucks man. Not much advice here. If he’s after a quote I believe there are a few guys on here that do carpet professionally. My experience with damages(when I was renting) has been very minimal, and usually anything I’ve broken I’ve fixed and brought to the landlords attention. On a side note, I’m looking for a roommate lol
Definitely can’t keep it that long…most states are 30 days max I believe.
if it’s just a small carpet repair we aren’t talking hundreds of dollars here. I have had carpets patched in apartments for $50-60 in about 45 minutes. If I have some scrap it is really easy otherwise I have to pull some up in a closet somewhere.
Was there a written agreement on the pet deposit? If so what does it say the money is to be used for? I take a monthly pet fee based on weight and the intent on my end is to pay for the extra cleaning that a pet living I the place usually requires…not to cover major damage committed by the pet.
Landlord can hold a deposit for a “reasonable” amount of time by law which could be up to 45 days in most cases or longer if there is a reason. If you go to small claims, a judge is going to determine this. How long have they held it?
I bet if you do go to court, he will have an estimate saying the carpet was close to 600 to replace. Whether it’s legit or not is another story and I’m sure he would say he called you awhile ago to let you know that.
D
They can’t go and ding you for the replacement of the entire carpet due to one isolated piece of damage…I mean they can, but they shouldn’t. The charge should be for the repair of that one area.
they should only be charging you against what you damaged, not what it cost to replace it new. If you totally destroyed a 30 year old carpet, you didn’t do the dollar equivalent of damage that new carpet will cost. That old carpet had a useful life and you only destroyed the remaining useful life and it’s associated value, not the value new.
it stinks from the landlords perspective because even if a carpet is well into its useful life, but is serviceable, then the damage done essentially requires the installation of new carpeting, which means it cost 100% of value to put a carpet into service even though you may have only lost 20% of the useful life and value. Unless you can find some nice used carpeting out there.
the other question is whether or not the place has been re-rented. In my experience, the courts don’t look kindly on landlords who claim their property has suffered some challenging damage, but not quite so challenging that there isn’t a new tenant there the following month.
its a NYS thing. if he has not provided you an itemized list of damages within 60 days take him to small claims. you will win. He cannot just get an estimate after the fact.
Its been since end of september we did the final walk through and went over the whole house. The carpet is only destroyed on one stair. He did lay down carpet on the stairs right befor we moved in. He told us a buddy did it for only 300 and used cheap carpet and thats the only reason why he did put down carpet. Now his buddy doesnt do carpet anymore so hes going to all the fancy places.
It’s a pain, but maybe search around for carpet prices yourself - this way you know wha you’re talking about when he says its a zillion dollars and you can say no i found it for 300 - lets split the diff or take some out of my pet deposit, lets work something out blah blah
