Property Management Quick Tip – Landlord Compensation for tenant damage

When a tenant vacates a property, an outgoing inspection report is done. It’s clear that any outstanding rent and water invoices need to be either paid by the tenant or claimed from the bond. It is also clear that when something is broken it needs to be fixed, but how do you deal with a stain on carpet or a burn mark on a kitchen bench top?
One way is to claim the entire replacement through insurance – it will exceed the bond, in this case, the entire bench top was replaced through an insurance claim.

If you need to claim through the tenant directly and they challenge paying $3000 to replace the entire bench (you cannot patch up or fix part of a bench), then a landlord can settle on compensation from the tenant. In this case if the landlord wanted to go down this path, $500 to go towards the landlord replacing the bench sometime in future could be given to the landlord by the tenant to compensate the landlord for the damage. This can be done if an entire claim is not made and if the house is still rent able despite the small amount of damage.