Landlords,
We're losing a six-year tenant (and have a new couple moving in shortly). Very soon, I will have to do the final walkthrough with the old tenant to inspect the place and check off the list of items that goes with the lease.
What is appropriate for charging against his (one month's rent) security deposit?
For example, the carpets were not in great shape six years ago, but they are much worse now and probably need to be replaced. The electric glass stovetop is now chipped. The front door hardware is broken. Rooms need to be painted.
We've been lucky with tenants in the past, and have always happily returned 100% of the deposit if they fixed whatever they had broken, but we've never had a tenant stay anywhere this long and there is some accumulated damage.
I consider the painting and front door to be normal landlord maintenance issues, and would probably pay for those myself. I think the chipped stove top is tenant destruction and he should pay to replace it. The carpets I'm undecided about, since his kids really trashed them. My wife doesn't necessarily agree with any of that.
If it matters any, his rent has been dirty cheap for the area, but he also doesn't call us very often for maintenance and he took pretty good care of the place himself.
Any advice for me? I don't have a lot of time before decisions need to be made.