Just when you thought you’d heard them all, another security deposit horror story surfaces. This one is told by an attorney who helped a Rogers Park renter recoup his deposit last May.
The renter had committed a grave error. He waited nearly a year before attempting to retrieve his lost deposit. Worse yet, he had no idea why his money had been withheld.
The landlord had refused to give him a reason. That is, until the lawyer became involved and legal wheels started turning.
“I was the first one to tell the renter about the damage the landlord claimed he did,” says Chicago attorney David Gorski. The renter was accused of ruining the apartment’s refrigerator, a questionable expense that could have been resolved months earlier had legal action been taken.
However, “when the tenant waits for a year to get his security deposit back, it gives the landlord an opportunity to dig up a thousand different things that he says he had to replace or repair,” explains Gorski. “Memories become faulty, the evidence is gone, and you’ve got people going into court speculating.”
In short, this renter, like many others, contributed to his own demise, diminishing his chances of recovering his security deposit. Can such blundering behavior be avoided? Yes, if you can steer clear of the cardinal sins of security deposits, those nasty little (and sometimes big) offenses that you don’t want to commit if you expect to see your hard-earned cash again.
Write it down
Sin No. 1 is to jeopardize your deposit from the start. When you sign your lease, do NOT fail to get agreements with your landlord in writing. It’s an oversight that can ultimately be far more costly than losing the deposit itself. At least, that’s what Bill Von Dahm found out when he rented a Gold Coast condo a few years back.
“The carpet was worn and the drapes were stained and soiled from rain damage,” recalls Von Dahm, who had secured promises from the landlord that both would be replaced shortly after he moved in. “But I never got it in writing; I just trusted him. I thought he was a substantial guy.”
Time passed and the landlord didn’t deliver. Finally, after months of calling, the exasperated renter gave up. At the conclusion of his lease, he informed the landlord that he was moving out and wanted his security deposit back. But Von Dahm was slapped with a rude and rather expensive awakening. “Not only did he not return my security deposit, but after I left, he sued me for damaging the carpet and drapes. He wanted me to pay $10,000,” says the former tenant.
Read and repent
Neglecting to read your lease can also cost you. Last year, when Mike Duggan and his roommate decided to moved out of their Lake View apartment, they told the landlord that they needed to stay a few extra days beyond the end of the lease term.
“The landlord said we could stay there after the lease was up, but he neglected to tell us that the deposit would be prorated,” says Duggan, who had a steep $50 a day deducted from his security deposit because his lease stipulated the holdover charge was OK.
Want to kiss your deposit goodbye? Commit this dirty little transgression: Don’t bother cleaning the place. “I tell my residents, if you want your security deposit back, live in the apartment like you own the place,” says Leslie Whittaker, property manager at Tanglewood Apartments in Arlington Heights. “It’s nothing big; just clean the apartment when you leave.”
To show she means business, Whittaker even hands renters a list of potential charges on the day they move in. For example, an uncleaned oven will cost you $20. Ditto for failure to vacuum the rug. Not defrosting the refrigerator costs you $25 and leaving a dirty kitchen sink runs $10.
An accounting
On the other hand, some renters do clean their apartments, but without any documentation (a sinful slipup), their efforts are to no avail. “We left our apartment cleaner than when we moved in,” says Wrigleyville renter John Ford, who even hired a carpet cleaning service to remove stains in the rug. But his attempts proved fruitless. The landlord charged him anyway.
“He said the carpeting wasn’t cleaned to his satisfaction,” a subjective claim that Ford admits he had no way to fight. “I really couldn’t argue because I hadn’t taken any pictures of the apartment, which is something some of my friends do. . . .”
Likewise, don’t document your apartment before you move out, and you’ll be sure to pay. “Once the door is closed and the tenant has left the apartment, it’s his word against the landlord’s, and guess who is going to win? The guy who’s holding the money,” says attorney Gorski, who recommends videotaping or photographing the apartment with a camera that indicates the date the pictures were taken.
Sometimes, however, a photo won’t do. One North Side renter lost her deposit because her cat supposedly ruined the carpeting, says Gorski. “The landlord said the place reeked while the tenant absolutely denied there was any problem. Photographs may show urine stains, but the landlord was complaining about smell, which is an intangible,” explains the attorney.
The best course of action is to “try to have an agreement with the landlord about the condition of the apartment before you leave,” suggests Tim Carpenter, executive director of the Metropolitan Tenants Organization, a citywide tenant advocacy group. “Do a walk-through with a checklist and have both parties (you and the landlord) sign it.”
Obviously, “normal wear and tear” also enters into the equation. Most landlords say they won’t charge for such minor offenses to the property, because they’re expected. But what constitutes normal wear and tear? There isn’t any legal definition, says Chicago real estate attorney Cary Schiff, but “the better management companies don’t fool around with that sort of thing unless the damage is so egregious the eye can see it.”
What’s normal?
So when it comes to wear and tear, what separates the angels from the sinners?
“We expect people to live in their apartments,” says Deborah Graff, property manager of One East Delaware, a Gold Coast high-rise. “Certainly a tenant is going to have wall hangings and pictures on the wall. Our painters will patch those holes at no charge. It’s when there are large holes or there’s some sort of shelving unit with screws from top to bottom requiring an inordinate amount of time to fix the drywall that it becomes a problem.”
Then there are the other repairs that will dip deep into your deposit. These include cigarette burns, knife marks on countertops, chips or cracks in the bathroom fixtures, and carpet stains from leaking planters.
“A countertop repair is usually $60 to $70,” estimates Graff, referring to a small 6-by-4-inch section. “Just for the workmen to come out there’s an initial fee because otherwise it’s not worth their time.”
Don’t think you can get away with small oversights either. Unreturned keys, failure to replace an original light fixture, or even forgetting to empty a storage locker can result in charges. “People don’t realize that by not returning keys or emptying out a storage locker, it can be a costly proposition,” says Suzanne Vestuto, community relations representative for the Village of Oak Park. “It’s the dollar value as well as the time expended to repair, replace or rekey.”
Altering the property is another good way to get slapped with a deduction. That is, unless you have the landlord’s consent. Tanglewood’s Whittaker describes one rental unit that didn’t. “Two days ago, I inspected an apartment where one living room wall had wallpaper and the other was painted dark blue. They also took mirrored tiles and plastered them all over the outside of the kitchen cupboards. When we tried to pull them off, the tiles were tearing off the backs of the cabinets. The lease said they were not to make any alterations to the apartment or paint it different colors without the consent of management. These people did not do that, and they’re being charged.”
Similarly, gross abuse to the apartment, one of the most serious sins, will cost you big time. In fact, the amount can be so high that the loss of the security deposit will seem minimal. One of Whittaker’s most extreme cases cost one family $2,300. Says the property manager, “. . . We had to call an exterminator in, replace the carpeting, and pull out and replace the appliances. There’s no way their security deposit was going to take care of all of that.”
The last trumpet
Of course, breaking a lease is a sure-fire way to lose your security deposit, too. “You’re breaking a commitment,” says Graff. “Usually there’s at least a month of lost rent. It’s not like the apartment can be re-rented tomorrow.”
And when you sublet your apartment, don’t think that you’re totally off the hook. Although your security deposit should be reimbursed by the subtenant, if damage is done to the apartment during your absence and the deposit doesn’t cover it, you’re still liable.
Don’t count on sidestepping any unpaid rent or late fees, either. Subtractions are in order for these transgressions, too. And even if you don’t cross the line, you could still get zapped.
The Metropolitan Tenants Organization’s Carpenter cautions renters to keep receipts or canceled checks as evidence of payment. “We find that it’s a somewhat common practice for a landlord to all of a sudden tell you that you paid your rent late six times during the 12 months that you were there.”
As a result of such tactics, renters have countered with another common practice-not paying the last month’s rent. “They try to head off having problems with the landlord in getting their security deposits back,” explains Carpenter.
However, if you commit this blunder, you’re breaking the law, and guess again if you think it can’t cost you. “You run the risk of the landlord beginning eviction proceedings,” says Carpenter. “While that almost always takes longer than a month and oftentimes won’t make sense, a landlord has every right in the world to do it, and you can end up with a court judgment that can stick with you for a long time.”
