State Specific Question About: CALIFORNIA (CA)

Hello!

what is your question ?

Good heavens, did you rent a room to a bear? Or someone with very, very long toenails?

Wear & tear is that which results from use. Most products were never designed to last forever and according to the Common Law, the hirers of these things are responsible for the portion that becomes dilapidated because of age and usage. That includes the fact that usage often results in damage despite the users best intentions. here is no hard and fast exclusive definition, but like pornography, most judges know it when they see it.

CA law forbids deducting from the security deposit the repair of damages to the premises due to ordinary wear and tear.

In addition, it is well-established in Common Law (including CA) that if the flooring is replaced, then any part of the replacement cost due to wear & tear is to be born by the hirer (landlord). So, even if you can establish that it is the fault of the tenant and not wear & tear, then you will have to depreciate your replacement cost for the use that you took out of it, according to the court schedule.

Maybe he had a dog visiting that scratched the

That is not wear and tear. That is damage. Maybe golf shoes?

Since it is your owner occupied home, some of the laws that we have to follow do not apply to you.

Point out the damage. Get a quote to replace the flooring. Bill him the full amount NOW with no deduction for "wear and tear", since , as you said, the floor was in good condition when he moved in and these are cuts in the floor.

California has goofy laws and may require you to prorate. If so, then I suppose you have to do it.

However, I have repeatedly challenged depreciation because it is a TAX concept. Ask for the stars, and if the judge reduces it to the moon, then so be it. 95% of security deposit issues never go to court.

Here's the one that has NEVER been logically answered by the depreciation experts...if a tenant smashes your 100 year old plate glass window, do you charge them for it? After all, rental property depreciates the entire structure at 27.5 years old. Theoretically, your window is worthless, right? What if they punch a hole in your perfect and pristine lath and plaster walls from the 1950s? What if they completely burn your beautiful house to the ground and it just turned 28 years old? Do you get nothing? Do you have to prorate out that the carpet was 28 years old and the paint was more than 7 years old, etc.? Does the dry wall, studs and joists get depreciated or are they considered to be "lasting forever" type materials? See how silly and illogical this gets?

I say it again: depreciation is a TAX concept.

Properly cared for, some things will last "almost" forever. Witness the 1970s linoleum in several of my units that still looks great, if a bit dated. There is paint on the walls of my personal residence in pristine condition: no dings, scratches, or smudges, that is well over 10 years old. Some on here would say that if I rented my house to a tenant and they destroyed it the day after the moved in, that I could not charge. Baloney slices!

Caveat: there are some legitimate wear and tear items. As Moshe said, there are some things one cannot avoid wearing out, such as the wear pattern one sees is a carpet after years of people walking on it. That's legitimate wear and tear because carpet is designed to be walked on. Linoleum is not designed to be ripped and gouged by sharp blade or whatever did the damage.

The cost of installation, etc. is part of the cost of replacing the floor covering. If the floor covering needs to be replaced due to both damage and wear & tear, then the cost of replacement includes installation and labor, and it is the total cost that must be partitioned according to the various causes.

The landlord is getting new floor covering in place of old, and doesn't get installation and labor of his new floor for free. He would eventually have to replace the covering anyway, including the payment of installation and labor. If it were due solely to wear & tear, the he would have to pay the full cost. If it is due solely to tenant damage, the tenant would have to pay. But, if the replacement is the result of damage PLUS wear & tear, then the cost has to be split between tenant and landlord, and any Junior High School student knows how to do that calculation.

Ok, I'll play...

What happens if the tenant's dog or cat piddles on the carpet and that soaked thru into the hardwoods beneath, rendering them smelly but not really bad enough to have to be replaced? Do you prorate based on the the value of the hardwoods or charge to repair damages? If so, what would be the justification, since one could argue a reasonable fix is to paint Kilz over it and put down new carpet? Are you entitled to any compensation at all if the hardwoods were installed 20 years ago? 30 years ago?

What if the carpet in question was a higher quality and carried a 10 year warranty vs. builders grade with a 3 year warrant? Whose time chart for proration do we use: IRS, manufacturer's warranty, or a trade group?

Do you prorate by the minute, hour, day, week, month or year? How detailed is too detailed when deciding, and what are the court cases that have laid out these rules?

What if you install the carpet in January and the new tenant doesn't move in until April? Do you knock off 1/4 of a year in value, or because there was no one in the house doing anything to the carpet, does it retain its full value?

What do you do when a tenant destroys a carpet and you were not the one who installed it (i.e. a previous owner did). You don't know how old the flooring is: do you make an educated guess or are you responsible for securing an itemized valuation of all potentially depreciable fixtures / attachments / coverings and paint for the entire property at the time of purchase? Or would we use the IRS rules that reset the property's cost basis (including all attachments) to the market value of the property at the time of transfer/sale to a new party? Or do we consider any asset with an unknown time of install to be worthless for the purposes of charging for damages?

Wow....you guys sure know how to answer a question and then some! I love this website. So many ways of looking at a situation, even legally. Here's the deal. My home was built in 1991. That bathroom had only been used beginning in 2005. So, the linoleum is pretty new.

GO SID GO!!!!!!

Thanks for the giggle! :-)

I realize to some I am still a newbie, however not green.

The longer I am in the business the more my perspective changes.

An example: "If your actions/behavior or lack of actions/behavior costs

I did answer, but my contribution hasn't (yet) cleared the censor.

I'll be interested to see Moshe's response.

Bottom line: I think there is a right way to handle this, and quite frankly it's pretty obvious. Instead of doing what amounts to contorted gymnastics to figure out every possible scenario, I just go with Tenants should pay for the market value of the item(s) destroyed. Market value cannot be accurately measured by a depreciation table that takes no nuances into consideration. That's how I do it, and that's how my judge rules on it.

I'm not out to cheat someone or be unfairly enriched. I simply want to be made whole when someone breaks my stuff.

I'm with Sid.

Depreciation is a tax concept.

I turn over a perfectly good home. If I get it back a year later with all kinds of dings, dents, bangs and cuts, I expect to bill the tenant for ALL of them. I don't expect to reduce the cost by 1/7 or 1/5 or whatever, just because they lived there for part of the depreciation time.

After this long on the planet, I can tell the difference between carpet that is worn out from use and carpet that is abused. Heck - I have builders grade carpet that has been in my own home since 2000. There are places it looks trashed and places it looks nearly new.

Hardwood floors should last 100 years or more.

It looks like MrLandlord isn't going to publish my response.

Pity.

If you really want to see it, perhaps you might write to MrLandlord and ask that it be published.

It was sent this morning, just before my 9:52 am post to Sisco, and addressed to Sid.

Maybe MrLandlord will accede to popular demand.

Berta,

Why be shy?

It's simple - ask him. "Joe, What happened to the floor in the bathroom?"

Or better yet MY technique: "Joe, I'll have to charge you fro those gouges in the bathroom floor."

And I would charge him every penny it costs to hire someone to fix it. This is a REPAIR, not a replacement.

Timid Landlords Raise Skinny Kids. Don't be shy.

BRAD

One definition of depreciation refers to a tax concept. Another definition is "a reduction in the value of an asset with the passage of time, due in particular to wear and tear".

Obviously the second definition is what is being referred to