u/lily_sunflower_

Two months ago I posted about our landlord asking us to cover repairs of a chipped countertop 7 weeks after move out (4 years of tenancy in a SFH in California). We got great advice and responded explaining that we had an extensive move-out inspection by his colleague and mother-in-law with detailed photos and received our security deposit back after making his requested repairs. He did not respond.

Today, 3.5 months after we moved out, he sent us a long email with additional items he noted are damaged that he wants us to pay even though they could have been caused by someone else. During this last 3.5 months he’s had (illegal) short-term vacation renters and he re-occupied a month ago with his family.

Items are:

-4 countertop edge chips (was 3 last time he emailed about this)

-Small dents and paint chips on 2 cabinets

-Scratch and small dent on front of dishwasher (note that we had a plastic cover on the entire time bc it was replaced during our tenancy)

-A chip on one capiz shell of a kitchen chandelier

-A missing valence on blinds from upstairs (he agreed to let us replace with curtains bc they were broken) and downstairs (this is the one thing we CAN take responsibility for because it broke while we were there- we replaced with curtains and did not remember to mention it)

What do we do now? The only thing we know we did was the downstairs blinds valence- everything else he said was not on our move-in checklist but we know were also not on the move-out checklist by his realtor friend. It’s really stressful that he’s reaching out to have us pay for these 3.5 months after move-out and already getting out security deposit back (following some small repairs noted at that time). We’re worried he’s going to sue us if he’s taking the time now to revisit all of this.

ETA link to original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/TenantHelp/comments/1u3lt1a/landlord_asking_for_money_7_weeks_after_moveout/

We rented a house in California for 4 years and the landlords let us know they would be moving back in. Landlord was overseas and so had a colleague (realtor/property manager) and his mother-in-law do a very long and detailed move-out inspection (1.5 hours, took extensive pictures and sent them to him). He identified a few things for us to repair, which we did, and we got our deposit back. We moved out 7 weeks ago. Now he has moved back in and is sending us multiple daily text messages about things he’s seeing: e.g. missing a small white cap that goes over a toilet screw, a piece of wood on an outdoor gate that needs to be nailed back down (caused by gardeners- we didn’t use that gate), and he found a couple chips on the edge of a quartz countertop in the kitchen that he now is saying he needs to repair and is going to send us the estimate.

We feel that everything was resolved during the move-out process, we have our deposit back, and it’s been 7 weeks - can he really ask us to cover something after the fact like this? It could have been caused by someone else for all we know! We left the house in very good condition and got it professionally deep cleaned before our move out.

Also- during our tenancy we had no hot water for 6 weeks one winter (luke warm) that he lagged on fixing, issues with the heating one winter, the foundation was shifting and had issues opening the front door at one point, and he asked us not to use a shower starting in July 2024 because it was leaking and never fixed it. We never asked for a rent reduction and just tried to encourage him to fix things- we had a good rent for where we live and didn’t want him to raise the rent so tried to keep things as easy as possible.

I kind of want to mention all this to remind him of what we put up with and get him to stop harassing us. We moved to another house in the same neighborhood so also don’t want to get into a fight…

What is the best way deal with this? What can he actually do?

I currently live in Pacifica with my husband and 2 kids (4 and 1). I work at UCSF at Mission Bay and have to be in office between 2-4x/month. My husband would be able to work in Santa Cruz. We’d really like to move back to Santa Cruz where we have a large community of friends and feel more connected than we do up here, and we’d be really happy to have our kids grow up there . I’m wondering from commuters whether you could imagine doing the commute once a week to every other week. I could imagine taking the 1 because at least it’s beautiful. Does anyone here commute to UCSF?