Fees and Penalties Charged by Landlords
A room recently opened up at your friend’s house and they have asked you to move in. After reviewing the rental agreement for your current apartment, you take the required steps to end your lease agreement. However, a week after moving out of your apartment you are surprised to receive only part of your security deposit and a notice explaining that a $50 “move out fee” has been deducted from the remainder of the returned security deposit.
Can your landlord really deduct this fee from your security deposit?
Why was a fee deducted from my security deposit?
A landlord typically charges a fee following the lease agreement being broken by a tenant. The type of fee will likely depend on extra expenses incurred by the landlord as a result of the lease being broken and any damages sustained by the property.
Fees that a landlord can charge a tenant include:
· Property damage,
· Unpaid rent,
· Late charges,
· Utilities,
· Penalties, and
· Other money the tenant owes the landlord.
Although this list seems expansive, Montana law prohibits landlords from charging fees for anything other than those listed reasons.
Now, when is your landlord allowed to deduct fees from a security deposit?
What makes a fee justified?
Just because a fee was deducted from your security deposit doesn’t mean your landlord had a good reason to charge you. In general, a party claiming to be wronged because of a rental agreement being broken must take reasonable steps to reduce any costs they have incurred because of the broken agreement. A tenant can not be expected to cover any costs resulting from the agreement ending prematurely if their landlord did nothing to try and keep the costs as low as possible.
An example of a failure to reduce the costs of an injury would be a landlord not taking steps to re-rent a vacant property following a tenant breaking their lease. The previous tenant would not be obligated to cover the costs of a landlord re-renting the vacant property if the landlord made no attempt to find a new tenant for the property.
Montana law allows landlords to deduct fees from a tenant’s security deposit for any of the specific reasons listed above. However, a reason authorized by law alone is not enough to justify a deduction from a tenant’s security deposit. The deduction must reflect the actual cost the landlord paid to fix the damage caused by a tenant breaking the rental agreement.
Some instances where a landlord does incur actual damages could be running additional advertisements to fill a vacancy or the rental agency working overtime to clean a vacated apartment. A landlord could not claim they are actually damaged if the landlord’s expenses following the tenant breaking the rental agreement are no different than if the tenant continued to rent the property until the end of the lease’s term.
How to Challenge a Landlord’s Fees
You don’t need to hire a lawyer to challenge your landlord’s fees! Your first course of action is to write a complaint letter to your landlord. In general, the letter should include:
· A concise statement of the problem(s).
· A chronology of previous attempts to resolve the problem(s) and responses to those attempts.
· A clear and well-defined statement requesting that the problem be resolved. This should explain the specific course of action requested and a specific time period within which the request must be met.
· A clear indication as to what will be done if the request is not met with the time specified.
For a complaint letter regarding a disagreement on fees, a tenant will likely request a return of the fees deducted from the security deposit or a request of any documents showing the costs and time spent to justify the fees claimed by the landlord.
