huskerkurt
New Member
I apologize if this is a little long winded, but I want to get all the information in here.
I live in Lincoln, NE. Approximately 3 1/2 months ago my family moved out of a house we had rented/lived in for 6 1/2 years into a bigger house that fit our family better. In those 6 1/2 years I would say we were very good tenants, though I'm sure our landlord could list a bunch of minor b/s and made up stuff to dispute that. We were never once in those 6 1/2 years late paying rent, and about the only problems we ever had was not keeping our yard up to the standard he would have liked, though that was mostly because he only lived a little over a block away and was constantly watching us and was always worried someone was going to call the city on our yard (though it never got anywhere close to that bad).
He raised the rent once on us, by $100, and also was going to have us sign a new one-year lease, in August 2011. The $100 was to cover trash service, which a new city ordinance now required him to provide (but also allowed him to pass the cost on) and the rest was for him to do yard work and snow removal. Of that $100, $20 of that went to trash, $80 went to yard work/snow removal. I won't go into too much detail, other than to say that the level of his yard work/snow removal service was nowhere near the $80 a month we paid.
As for the lease aspect, we signed a one-year lease when we moved in, and never signed another one after that, he never got around to having us sign that new one-year lease when he raised the rent, so we were on a month to month to basis after that one year lease was up.
I also thought I would just throw this in here, when we moved in we paid a deposit totaling $975; $650 was equal to one months rent, and $325 was a pet deposit. I have recently discovered that the amount he charged us for deposit was illegal, state law only allows for a deposit to be at maximum the amount of one months rent, plus allows for up to one quarter of that to be charged in a pet deposit, if applicable. So the maximum, with a pet deposit, is 1.25, he charged us 1.5 times one months rent. I realize that probably means nothing since it's all passed now, just thought I would point that out.
Now on to my actual problem. About 2 weeks ago, or a little over two months after we finished moving out, we finally got the letter from him in the mail about the damages. I had been expecting something, and was a little surprised it took so long. Knowing our land lord, I always figured he'd come up with a bunch of ridiculous stuff to charge us for, but I was still thrown little when I saw just how much he thought we owed. The total, after subtracting the $975 deposit, was $1,727, or $2,702 before the deposit is taken out.
I will start off by freely admitting that the house wasn't as clean as it could have been when we left it. My wife and I both had to work during the time we were moving and couldn't afford to take days off, plus we had to deal with bitter cold weather and a few different snow events that slowed us down. So I will say some rooms weren't as clean as they could have been, but what was left cleaning wise would have only taken a couple days at most.
I will go through the list of charges, and give what I dispute:
There are some charges on this list I don't or won't dispute. Some I might think are a little excessive or something, but I don't find worth disputing. These add up to $349.56.
The first charge I dispute, and it is $61.30 to replace a broken drawer front in the kitchen. The drawer wasn't in perfect shape when we moved in, and is probably the original drawer from when the house was built in the 1950s. The drawer did finish breaking while we lived there, but the amount listed seems excessive to me, and also doesn't take into account normal wear and tear from 6 1/2 years of living there, plus the fact that it was already around 60 years old. The main thing I dispute is the largest portion of that charge, $50, is for labor. There is no way $50 worth of labor went into fixing that drawer. I think a more fair charge for this drawer is in the $15 to $20 range, taking into account it's age and 6 1/2 years of wear and tear, and that's probably still a little generous.
The next disputed charge is for windows (torn screens and broken glass) for a total of $97.31. The only broken glass I know of was there when we moved in, and was noted on our move-in checklist, and also mentioned to the landlord (which he told us numerous times he would fix and never did, a common theme). As for torn screens, there is only one that I think we owe for, that we broke ourselves one time when we needed to get in our house and didn't have our keys and the landlord wasn't home. Others I don't think had anything done to them that wasn't already there (and I'm fairly certain most of this was documented on our move in checklist again). The screens again were probably quite old, not sure if they were as old as the house, but most likely at least 20 years old if not more, plus you have 6 1/2 years of normal wear on them. I think a fair cost here would be to replace the one screen we admit to breaking, probably again in the $15 to $20 range, but I'm sure a specific amount could be found.
The next one is the first big one and I dispute it. It's $576 for replacing carpet in the two bedrooms. I will admit the carpets were not as clean as they could have been, we didn't have time to do a thorough vacuuming or to have them cleaned when we left. I dispute that the carpets even needed to be replaced, a good cleaning should have been enough, but even if they were replaced, there is no way I should incur all or even most of the cost. I'm not quite certain how old the carpets were, I know they were not new when I moved in, and hadn't been replaced anytime recently (the previous tenant lived there for at least a year). My guess is the newest they might have been was installed in 2002, when my landlord purchased the house, though I'm not even sure that is the case. Either way, the carpets were, at their newest, 4 years old when we moved in, and I know from reading the law, he can bring things up to where they were when I moved in, minus normal wear and tear. This is part of where I need some help is figuring up exactly how much to depreciate for normal wear and tear. From my viewpoint, to replace carpet that was already around for a while when I moved in, and had incurred 6 1/2 years of wear and tear, my part of that should be no more than around $100 to $150.
The next charge is $481.97 to replace the carpet in the basement. My guess is this carpet was 4 years old when I moved in, I know he said he did the half finish of the basement himself when he bought the house, so I'm guessing it was installed at that point. I dispute I should actually have to pay for any of this replacement, because the reason it needs to be replaced was not my fault and beyond my control. Probably not more than a month or two after we moved in to the house, we had a rainstorm, and discovered then that the foundation leaked water into the basement and nearly completely soaked the carpet. We informed our landlord of the problem, to which he did nothing more than say he would try to keep the gutters clean so more of the water would drain away from the house. He rarely kept up on that, and through the 6 1/2 years we lived there, numerous rainstorms flooded our basement and soaked the carpet. We told him about this multiple times over the first few years we lived there, though that trailed off as he continued to do little to nothing about it. We did our best each time this happened to vacuum up what we could of the water and dry it out, but that's easier said then done and over time damage was done. I don't think we owe a penny to replace this carpet.
Next up is $110 for broken blinds replacement. There is only one window that I think we should have had to replace the blinds on, one that was close to our childrens' beds that they liked to mess with. All of the others had only very minor damage at best, which I think would be covered under 6 1/2 years of normal wear and tear, and again the fact that they were nowhere near new when we moved in. Not quite sure what the cost we should incur is here, but $110 is quite excessive.
There are some other things that I dispute that I won't mention here, but the main last one is $650 to sand and refinish the hardwood floors. The only major damage that I know of was one spot in the middle of the floor where something was spilled and apparently partially covered up for a while, and when the spot was finally discovered, the floor had been stained slightly. Beyond that, there was no major damage to the floor, and nowhere near enough to warrant an entire refinishing. I know the floors had been redone just a few years before we moved in there, and then to account for 6 1/2 years of wear, I'm not quite certain what I should owe on that, but it's not nearly the full amount here.
Sorry for the very long post, but I needed to get all the info down here. I also thought I would mention this was all just a letter sent to us with charges, he hasn't actually sued for damages or anything yet. He threatens in the letter that if we don't pay the full amount by his arbitrarily set due date, he will charge us late fees and interest in the amount of 21% A DAY for every day past due. I'm guessing this is just an empty threat, because I have been able to find nothing where he can legally do this, but someone please enlighten me.
Now to finally get to the point of what I'm asking for help on. I want to know how I should respond to this. My thought is I should basically respond with a counter-offer of what I think I owe. Basically go through the list he gave, and on each one put what I think I should owe. I'm wondering if this is a good idea, or if I should just do nothing and wait for him to take me to small claims court or whatever. I would also like some help, if any can be provided, on what a good way to determine how much to knock off for normal wear and tear, and the age of things like the carpet to begin with.
Again, sorry for the long post and thank you for any help that can be provided.
I live in Lincoln, NE. Approximately 3 1/2 months ago my family moved out of a house we had rented/lived in for 6 1/2 years into a bigger house that fit our family better. In those 6 1/2 years I would say we were very good tenants, though I'm sure our landlord could list a bunch of minor b/s and made up stuff to dispute that. We were never once in those 6 1/2 years late paying rent, and about the only problems we ever had was not keeping our yard up to the standard he would have liked, though that was mostly because he only lived a little over a block away and was constantly watching us and was always worried someone was going to call the city on our yard (though it never got anywhere close to that bad).
He raised the rent once on us, by $100, and also was going to have us sign a new one-year lease, in August 2011. The $100 was to cover trash service, which a new city ordinance now required him to provide (but also allowed him to pass the cost on) and the rest was for him to do yard work and snow removal. Of that $100, $20 of that went to trash, $80 went to yard work/snow removal. I won't go into too much detail, other than to say that the level of his yard work/snow removal service was nowhere near the $80 a month we paid.
As for the lease aspect, we signed a one-year lease when we moved in, and never signed another one after that, he never got around to having us sign that new one-year lease when he raised the rent, so we were on a month to month to basis after that one year lease was up.
I also thought I would just throw this in here, when we moved in we paid a deposit totaling $975; $650 was equal to one months rent, and $325 was a pet deposit. I have recently discovered that the amount he charged us for deposit was illegal, state law only allows for a deposit to be at maximum the amount of one months rent, plus allows for up to one quarter of that to be charged in a pet deposit, if applicable. So the maximum, with a pet deposit, is 1.25, he charged us 1.5 times one months rent. I realize that probably means nothing since it's all passed now, just thought I would point that out.
Now on to my actual problem. About 2 weeks ago, or a little over two months after we finished moving out, we finally got the letter from him in the mail about the damages. I had been expecting something, and was a little surprised it took so long. Knowing our land lord, I always figured he'd come up with a bunch of ridiculous stuff to charge us for, but I was still thrown little when I saw just how much he thought we owed. The total, after subtracting the $975 deposit, was $1,727, or $2,702 before the deposit is taken out.
I will start off by freely admitting that the house wasn't as clean as it could have been when we left it. My wife and I both had to work during the time we were moving and couldn't afford to take days off, plus we had to deal with bitter cold weather and a few different snow events that slowed us down. So I will say some rooms weren't as clean as they could have been, but what was left cleaning wise would have only taken a couple days at most.
I will go through the list of charges, and give what I dispute:
There are some charges on this list I don't or won't dispute. Some I might think are a little excessive or something, but I don't find worth disputing. These add up to $349.56.
The first charge I dispute, and it is $61.30 to replace a broken drawer front in the kitchen. The drawer wasn't in perfect shape when we moved in, and is probably the original drawer from when the house was built in the 1950s. The drawer did finish breaking while we lived there, but the amount listed seems excessive to me, and also doesn't take into account normal wear and tear from 6 1/2 years of living there, plus the fact that it was already around 60 years old. The main thing I dispute is the largest portion of that charge, $50, is for labor. There is no way $50 worth of labor went into fixing that drawer. I think a more fair charge for this drawer is in the $15 to $20 range, taking into account it's age and 6 1/2 years of wear and tear, and that's probably still a little generous.
The next disputed charge is for windows (torn screens and broken glass) for a total of $97.31. The only broken glass I know of was there when we moved in, and was noted on our move-in checklist, and also mentioned to the landlord (which he told us numerous times he would fix and never did, a common theme). As for torn screens, there is only one that I think we owe for, that we broke ourselves one time when we needed to get in our house and didn't have our keys and the landlord wasn't home. Others I don't think had anything done to them that wasn't already there (and I'm fairly certain most of this was documented on our move in checklist again). The screens again were probably quite old, not sure if they were as old as the house, but most likely at least 20 years old if not more, plus you have 6 1/2 years of normal wear on them. I think a fair cost here would be to replace the one screen we admit to breaking, probably again in the $15 to $20 range, but I'm sure a specific amount could be found.
The next one is the first big one and I dispute it. It's $576 for replacing carpet in the two bedrooms. I will admit the carpets were not as clean as they could have been, we didn't have time to do a thorough vacuuming or to have them cleaned when we left. I dispute that the carpets even needed to be replaced, a good cleaning should have been enough, but even if they were replaced, there is no way I should incur all or even most of the cost. I'm not quite certain how old the carpets were, I know they were not new when I moved in, and hadn't been replaced anytime recently (the previous tenant lived there for at least a year). My guess is the newest they might have been was installed in 2002, when my landlord purchased the house, though I'm not even sure that is the case. Either way, the carpets were, at their newest, 4 years old when we moved in, and I know from reading the law, he can bring things up to where they were when I moved in, minus normal wear and tear. This is part of where I need some help is figuring up exactly how much to depreciate for normal wear and tear. From my viewpoint, to replace carpet that was already around for a while when I moved in, and had incurred 6 1/2 years of wear and tear, my part of that should be no more than around $100 to $150.
The next charge is $481.97 to replace the carpet in the basement. My guess is this carpet was 4 years old when I moved in, I know he said he did the half finish of the basement himself when he bought the house, so I'm guessing it was installed at that point. I dispute I should actually have to pay for any of this replacement, because the reason it needs to be replaced was not my fault and beyond my control. Probably not more than a month or two after we moved in to the house, we had a rainstorm, and discovered then that the foundation leaked water into the basement and nearly completely soaked the carpet. We informed our landlord of the problem, to which he did nothing more than say he would try to keep the gutters clean so more of the water would drain away from the house. He rarely kept up on that, and through the 6 1/2 years we lived there, numerous rainstorms flooded our basement and soaked the carpet. We told him about this multiple times over the first few years we lived there, though that trailed off as he continued to do little to nothing about it. We did our best each time this happened to vacuum up what we could of the water and dry it out, but that's easier said then done and over time damage was done. I don't think we owe a penny to replace this carpet.
Next up is $110 for broken blinds replacement. There is only one window that I think we should have had to replace the blinds on, one that was close to our childrens' beds that they liked to mess with. All of the others had only very minor damage at best, which I think would be covered under 6 1/2 years of normal wear and tear, and again the fact that they were nowhere near new when we moved in. Not quite sure what the cost we should incur is here, but $110 is quite excessive.
There are some other things that I dispute that I won't mention here, but the main last one is $650 to sand and refinish the hardwood floors. The only major damage that I know of was one spot in the middle of the floor where something was spilled and apparently partially covered up for a while, and when the spot was finally discovered, the floor had been stained slightly. Beyond that, there was no major damage to the floor, and nowhere near enough to warrant an entire refinishing. I know the floors had been redone just a few years before we moved in there, and then to account for 6 1/2 years of wear, I'm not quite certain what I should owe on that, but it's not nearly the full amount here.
Sorry for the very long post, but I needed to get all the info down here. I also thought I would mention this was all just a letter sent to us with charges, he hasn't actually sued for damages or anything yet. He threatens in the letter that if we don't pay the full amount by his arbitrarily set due date, he will charge us late fees and interest in the amount of 21% A DAY for every day past due. I'm guessing this is just an empty threat, because I have been able to find nothing where he can legally do this, but someone please enlighten me.
Now to finally get to the point of what I'm asking for help on. I want to know how I should respond to this. My thought is I should basically respond with a counter-offer of what I think I owe. Basically go through the list he gave, and on each one put what I think I should owe. I'm wondering if this is a good idea, or if I should just do nothing and wait for him to take me to small claims court or whatever. I would also like some help, if any can be provided, on what a good way to determine how much to knock off for normal wear and tear, and the age of things like the carpet to begin with.
Again, sorry for the long post and thank you for any help that can be provided.
