Security deposits returns? Who, what, when, where, and why?
So you are all moved out, and you conducted your move-out inspection and have some questions about what happens next? Here’s the 411 on closing out your account and receiving you security deposit and final account reconciliation.
Note, if you are a partial renewal (i.e. you live in a multiperson place and some of you are staying with us, and others are leaving), then your return and reconciliation happens a little differently, especially for those who are staying. Just check in with us.
When (and where) will I receive the final accounting for my lease?
We will mail you an itemized list of damages and deductions, if any, along with either your remaining deposit or an invoice for any costs over and above the deposit. This will happen within 45 days of the end of your lease. It will go to you at your permanent address you provided on the lease. “You” in this case means the primary contact on the lease and the permanent address means the address that person provided when they signed the lease (or subsequently updated).
We really can’t speed this up because our first priority is to get your place fixed back up and turned over to the new tenants. We turn these around as fast as possible, but we generally have to wait for all the work to be completed and all contractors to invoice for it, and so on. You can’t make it go faster by calling or emailing a lot, but doing so might just slow it down. So please bear with us. 45 days. 🙂
How does the move-out inspection work?
We walked through your apartment, hopefully with you but if you weren’t available when the move out was scheduled, then without you. We wrote down any damage we saw inside or outside the apartment. We have a nice, orderly form for doing this. We often take pictures. Sometimes a lot of them (you know who you are!). We generate work orders for your place based on the move-out inspection. These work orders are used to ready the unit for the next tenants.
We take the move-out inspections and the previous move-in inspections and we compare them. We also compare the move-in and move-out inspections to any work you requested during the year. We mark off the things that were on the move-in and were not fixed during the year. We then take the work orders and generate an itemized list of all the labor and materials that would be necessary to address these issues. We then do a final accounting on your ledger, providing you a credit or debit for whatever your unit balance is at the time we close out the account (e.g. did the unit owe money, or did it have a credit balance?), and we tally that with whatever costs are associated with the turnover.
How do I get the refund? Or make a payment?
We then send the final accounting, along with a check or invoice, to the permanent address for the primary contact for the unit. On multi-person locations, like a 5 bedroom home, you are all jointly and severally liable, so its up to the primary contact to work out how much each of you should get back, or owe to us, because you are all, together, responsible for the “one big bucket” that is the account.
If you need to make a payment, it may be made by check to the office. Once you are moved out, your portal access is no longer available for the terminated lease so you will not be able to issue an ACH payment request inside the portal. Under some circumstances, we may be able to assist with this, so send us a note if there is a problem.
Have questions about the itemization?
We have a faq for that, including some common questions and concerns. But the main thing is to simply send us a written description of your questions, and we will respond in detail to the primary contact.