tl;dr - Assuming my apartment is spotless, can my landlord arbitrarily decide it's not clean enough and hire professional cleaners using a portion of my deposit?
I live in California and recently moved out of an apartment. About 3 months before our move, my wife started cleaning our apartment and focused on upkeep in order to minimize necessary cleaning at the very end. We fully moved out 2 weeks early and spent that remaining time doing more cleaning and touchups. All that to say it was very easy to ensure everything was spotless, the complete opposite of a rush-job!
I haven't received my deposit back yet, but I went online to the management company's portal and saw that they deducted almost $450 of my deposit from my account: $320 for unit cleaning and $125 for floor cleaning, with the name of the cleaning company attached.
I'm about ready to dispute this but I checked California Code, Civil Code - CIV § 1950.5 section b which states that landlords can deduct from the deposit for any of the following:
(1) The compensation of a landlord for a tenant's default in the payment of rent.
(2) The repair of damages to the premises, exclusive of ordinary wear and tear, caused by the tenant or by a guest or licensee of the tenant.
(3) The cleaning of the premises upon termination of the tenancy necessary to return the unit to the same level of cleanliness it was in at the inception of the tenancy. The amendments to this paragraph enacted by the act adding this sentence shall apply only to tenancies for which the tenant's right to occupy begins after January 1, 2003.
(4) To remedy future defaults by the tenant in any obligation under the rental agreement to restore, replace, or return personal property or appurtenances, exclusive of ordinary wear and tear, if the security deposit is authorized to be applied thereto by the rental agreement.
Section #3 is what I'm concerned about. How much power does this give the landlord? Can they just arbitrarily decide that my apartment was not "the same level of cleanliness" and therefore they had to hire professionals? I mean, no cleaning is going to be 100% perfect, but is there some kind of criteria that would keep a landlord from just getting extra cleaning just because they can?
Will I be able to dispute this easily enough in small claims court if it gets to that? And on whom is the burden of proof in this scenario?
Other details:
- I didn't take pictures at the end unfortunately
- I don't have an itemized receipt yet, just a recorded transaction on the management portal indicating it was for cleaning. Nothing related to repairs or painting as far as I can tell.
- Management did a move out inspection and didn't report anything egregious. We took care of any area that mentioned "a little cleaning needed."
- It has been 21 days since my move out. They essentially have until the end of the day to return my deposit or provide an itemized receipt. Not sure if a postmark date matters here or not.
Submitted July 25, 2019 at 08:26PM by bboydru https://ift.tt/2ZfGXoQ
