What to Do When Vacating Tenants Owe More Money Than Their Deposit Will Cover

by Brandon

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 What to Do When Vacating Tenants Owe More Money Than Their Deposit Will Cover

The following is an excerpt from the upcoming title “The Book on Landlording” that I and BiggerPockets will be releasing soon… stay tuned for an official announcement in the next several months!

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My first thought was: there is a dead body in this refrigerator.

Of course, upon closer inspection there was no dead body, just rotting food, garbage, and other unknown objects. The smell was unlike anything I had ever experienced before.

I don’t make it a habit to inspect rental properties myself anymore, as I have built systems to handle that, but I happened to be in this part of town a few hours after a tenant packed up and left, so my wife and I thought we would swing by and see how the property looked.

I wish I hadn’t.

The unit was left with garbage covering nearly every square inch of the floor, holes in the walls, doors missing, crayon on nearly every surface and that smell that permeated every cubic foot of space. All in all, it took nearly $4,000 to get the unit fixed up and ready to re-rent, including the costs of lost rent.

Luckily, when the tenant moved in, we had collected a double security deposit due to a minor red flag when performing her tenant screening. But as any third-grader can tell you, having a deposit for $1,000 and a bill for $4,000 means one thing: we were in the hole $3,000.

So what now?

I wanted to write this post because this is not an uncommon occurrence, especially among low-income tenants.

(Click to read on BiggerPockets…)

About Brandon

has written 199 Awesome posts in this blog.

Brandon Turner (G+) is the BiggerPockets.com Senior Editor and Community Director and owner of RealEstateInYourTwenties.com. He is also an Active Real Estate Investor (Flips, Apartments, and Buy-and-Hold), Entrepreneur, World Traveler, Third-Person Speaker, and Husband. Come hang out with him on Twitter!

P.S. looking for hard money loans in California? Be sure to check out my friends over at northcoastfinancialinc.com. They have very competitive rates, can fund within a week and specialize in fix and flip loans and other hard money loans.

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