Security Deposit
Thank you all in advance for your help, I greatly appreciate any advice. My wife and I recently left a 2 bedroom apartment in Park Slope after living there for 1 year. Our rent was $3200 per month, the security deposit was $6400. The landlord just returned our security deposit – minus $2500 for damages….
Thank you all in advance for your help, I greatly appreciate any advice.
My wife and I recently left a 2 bedroom apartment in Park Slope after living there for 1 year. Our rent was $3200 per month, the security deposit was $6400.
The landlord just returned our security deposit – minus $2500 for damages.
The apartment was in good condition when we left. I even went to the trouble of spackling over the holes where we hung pictures. I filmed the walkthrough with a video camera – the apartment looks immaculate.
However, in my landlord’s opinion, the apartment was dirty. Because of the work I did (filling the holes from hanging pictures), he said he had to have the entire place painted.
Also, he accused me of damaging the floors – ancient wide plank pine which were in mediocre shape when we moved in.
Here are the charges, no receipts were included.
Labor – $900
Supplies $160
Floor – $525
I was also charged for damage in the hallway. Our movers scratched the walls and the bannister in a few places- this cost us $800 in labor and $135 in supplies.
He also charged us $300 for carpet outside our door – I never noticed a problem there and it wasn’t pointed out in the walkthrough.
I believe we were overcharged for normal wear and tear.
Also, we endured construction for several months on renovations to the apartment beneath us (all of which was done without permits, by the way). This is why I doubt there will be receipts.
What do I do? Needless to say our landlord has issues, it’s really sad actually and it’s almost worth eating $2500 to never have to deal with him again, but I have a strong sense of right and wrong and this is simply wrong.
Thanks,
HCB
>I have a different view. We would never allow a tenant to ‘live out’ his security deposit by withholding rent. And if one ever did, we would begin eviction immediately.>
By the time you got him into court the lease would be up and the judge would order you to accept the security deposit as back rent.
I appreciate that you are an honest landlord as are many, especially small Brownstoner kind of landlords, but I wonder what percentage are.
When I rented in BH many years ago, upstairs from a deli on Montague Street owned by very well known and respected members of the community (I’m sure you can figure it out) the two young women above me who were moving out (they were from out of town) came to me about getting their deposit back. The landlords refused to give back any of it. Just because they could take advantage of a pair of gullible young women. I told them the same thing. Sorry you had to learn the hard way, but always live out your security deposit.
There was no insurance certificate required from the movers by your landlord for a move out. You might be able to get that portion back thru the court. Landlords don’t budge when it comes to giving full security back. I have tenants and I give back every penny of their security dposit no matter what.
Thanks for all of the responses.
Watching the landlord operate over the year we lived there – the petty complaints about one thing and then another, then the illegal renovations that we had to deal with – we halfway expected this and considered withholding the last two months as denton recommended. But it just didn’t seem right to me and I, wrongly, trusted the landlord to do the right thing.
Especially for the amount of rent he was charging.
In the video, you can see the landlord saying, “Look, see this scratch on the floor, see it, see it? You have to lean this way and you’ll see it. Here, stand over here and you’ll see it.” Same with the walls. It’s sad.
I have a different view. We would never allow a tenant to ‘live out’ his security deposit by withholding rent. And if one ever did, we would begin eviction immediately.
On the flip side, though, we return 100% of security (execept in extreme circumstances), and do so on move out day. This way, we are protected until the tenant moves out, but the tenant is made whole as soon as he leaves.
What about small claims court? I’m not sure the Housing court would be the place for this dispute anyway, since they are already moved and it’s a monetary dispute.
I did what denton suggested, but I only did so after speaking to my landlord who was amenable. It’s pretty common from what I understand anyway. Unless a tenant has really trashed an apartment, most landlords seem ok with it, and most also, like you say slopefarm, understand the boiler plate is just that.
I think that is a bit over the top, Denton, to suggest that tenants, as a matter of course, should wipe out the security deposit by failing to pay rent. $2500 is an awfully big and unusual withhold. This landlord does seem way out of line. I am not aware that large numbers of landlords in the Slope are behaving this way.
As a landlord of the rental in my 2-fam house, I think HCB’s landlord is out of line. Although lease boilerplate probably prohibits wall hangings, I can’t imagine literal enforcement at the rents we are changing in the Slope. Landlords have to expect people are going to put up pictures and the like, and it is wrong to withhold over that. I want tenants to make themselves at home, so they will stay and I am spared the costs and lost rent associated with turnover.
Lechacal’s Hemmingway-esque post suggests that HCB litigate this pro se. This is the only meaningful route for recovery, if he has the stomach for it. The amount is too small to hire a lawyer for, and negotiation seems unlikely to bear fruit, although HCB might want to try a letter first seeking documentation and proposing a negotiation, just to see what happens and generate a bit of a paper trail. HCB, unsatisfying as it may be, I think it ultimately comes down to deciding whether you want to put the time and effort into litigating this thing yourself in Housing Court, or let it slide.
Just goes to show why you should never, ever expect the landlord to refund your security. Don’t pay the last month’s rent, or two months, in this case.
I bet your lease has a clause in it stating that you can’t put holes in the walls for pictures–most do.
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/courts/nyc/housing/index.shtml
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/courts/nyc/housing/represent.shtml
I’m sure you’re entitled to receipts. As for painting- for that kind of money no tenant would rent an apartment that wasn/t freshly painted. He’s trying to charge you for his normal wear and tear.
The commmon areas of any building get the most wear and tear and I’ve never heard of a tenant being responsible for that- it would be like saying you were responsible for the hallway lighting. In fact that cost to the landlord is already configured in your rent anyway.
The scratches in the hallway I can’t say. Most landlords eat that because it’s a common area and no matter how much care movers take, the logistics of moving someone in and out of an apartment will always result in some. But 300$ for the carpet outside your door? For what? the prices all seem really high except for the painting. But I don;t think you should have been charged for that anyway.
Just my opinion, but in my last apartment I was the super or the building and I got a good grounding in who is responsible for what. One disclaimer: my former landlady was wonderful and cared very much about her buildings, taking great care of them.