Security Deposit Law
Sunny San Diego is undoubtedly a beautiful city to live in. It’s so beautiful that people from all around the country flock to this very region and enjoy all that it has to offer. So it follows, many people enter tenancies and with difficult, greedy landlords. Some landlords fail to maintain the property, creating bad living conditions. More commonly, landlords prey on the inattentive and lazy tenants by keeping their security deposits at the end of lease when they weren’t entitled to do so. Real estate law firms who specialize in security deposit law in San Diego can help in dealing with these types of people.
California property law grants tenants very favorable protections from shady practices by landlords. However, these types of protections are not common knowledge among your average California tenant. For example, the law mandates that all security deposits are refundable, no matter what the lease says. Furthermore, the landlord must return the security deposit within 21 days of moveout. The law does, however, allow landlords to deduct from the security deposit to: rectify unpaid rent; clean the apartment; and repair any damage beyond ordinary wear and tear. Under security deposit law in San Diego, ordinary wear and tear can be a complex term for laypeople.
What Is Ordinary Wear and Tear?
The best way to understand ordinary wear and tear is to think of it as any slight damage caused by normal, foreseeable use of the property. These include minor things like:
- nail and tac marks on the wall
- nicks in the carpet from walking and moving furniture
- burnt light bulbs
- sewage and drainage problems because they simply “wore out”
- many other
If you are unsure as to whether you are entitled to your security deposit, it won’t hurt to contact an experienced real estate attorney. In some cases, where the landlord is shown to have kept the deposit in bad faith, they can be subject to penalties in the amount of twice the owed security deposit (in addition to returning the full deposit). In other cases, a well-written letter from an attorney is all it takes to get it back. For several years, Steven Brian Davis has vast experience in security deposit law in San Diego.
Contact him here for a free, confidential case evaluation.
