After dealing with rental cleaning and restoration on a daily basis, you would think it would be easy to tell average wear and tear from things that need to be repaired. Many times however, issues are not as cut and dry. A landlord may have gotten the property ready for a tenant to move in, and by the time the tenant is moving out, a handyman is sent in to fix any damages with the intent of withholding the tenant’s security deposit. But what if the handyman sees things that need to be repaired that the landlord does not? This is a common scenario for security deposit disputes.
The Difference Is Simpler Than You Think
One of the issues was wear and tear. In rental agreements, wear and tear refers to changes to the rental property that are caused by normal and reasonable use of the property. This could include things like worn door handles, fading or peeling of paint and flattening of carpet, or other things that happen over time. Unlike other damages to the rental, landlords are not allowed to charge for wear and tear according to the HUD guidelines and similar policies at other levels of government.
Tenant damage is separate from wear and tear. Tenant damage refers to any and all damages caused to the rental property in excess of normal wear and tear. This type of damage is the tenant’s responsibility, and as such, the landlord is entitled to recover some of the repair costs.
- Deep gouges in hardwood floors
- Burns on countertops or carpet
- Broken window locks or cracked tiles
- Pet stains soaked through to the subfloor
- Holes in walls bigger than a standard picture nail.
What Handymen Actually Look For
A good pre-inspect isn’t just about walking through a property ticking off boxes on a list. It’s about reading the story of the property and imagining the lives of the people who live and have lived there.
Walls and paint. Scratches and some nail holes from hanging up mirrors and/or frames are wear and tear. Large holes in the walls, drawing on the walls with crayons, or painting the walls a completely different color because you decided to redecorate the rental are considered damage. The FTC says that when calculating the cost of a repaint of the rental from the security deposit, the landlord should take into consideration the age of the item and its average life span, and the amount of paint that will be needed to repaint properly. See http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/renting-home#security-deposit.
Flooring. While your house may come carpeted, you should remember that carpet doesn’t last forever. At some point, your floors are going to need covering in a different way. By the time you need to replace the carpet, it will have also probably become stained, burned, or permeated with the smell of pet urine that regular cleaning can’t shake. And then there’s the scratches to the hardwood flooring that will occur from regular foot traffic. That staple in the baseboards between the carpet and the hardwood? Scratches from dragging your furniture across the floor without pads? More damage.
Doors and hardware. Sticky locks and weatherstripping after years can be considered maintenance issues. Doors kicked off their frames, or broken deadbolts are considered damage.
Appliances. Normal wear and tear includes an older dishwasher that may make some more noise than when new. Damage to appliances includes a crack in the interior walls of a microwave from heating a fork in it.
How Smart Property Managers Handle This
But it’s the handyman who wants to avoid the headache that usually deals with the landlord who has got all his paperwork in order. A set of move-in photos, a condition report at move-in, and a good lease agreement that outlines the responsibilities of the tenant for maintenance and repairs.
A great property management company does more than turn over a rental property to a new tenant with the keys to the front door. A quality property management company does more than fix busted toilets and leaky faucets on short notice. They conduct regular inspections throughout the term of the lease to make sure that any needed repairs are handled before things turn into bigger headaches, much like companies like Earnest Homes approach this by building structured maintenance routines into their property management process.
For those who repair or maintain rental properties, there are some useful maintenance standards on the maintenance standards section of the website of the National Apartment Association.
Call It What It Is
In your role as a handyman, the best thing you can do during a property walk and write up is to act as an honest person. You shouldn’t be overly nice to the tenant and sell the landlord short on needed repairs and you shouldn’t be overly aggressive and write up all the repairs that are just fine. Your role is to give an accurate report of the property.
Patricko Aaronickson has opinions about home maintenance essentials. Informed ones, backed by real experience — but opinions nonetheless, and they doesn't try to disguise them as neutral observation. They thinks a lot of what gets written about Home Maintenance Essentials, Home Repair Tips, Interior Design Inspirations is either too cautious to be useful or too confident to be credible, and they's work tends to sit deliberately in the space between those two failure modes.
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What Patricko is best at is the moment when a familiar topic reveals something unexpected — when the conventional wisdom turns out to be slightly off, or when a small shift in framing changes everything. They finds those moments consistently, which is why they's work tends to generate real discussion rather than just passive agreement.