Security deposit deductions

Updated 2026-10-18, 8 min read

Engraving of a scuffed door and paint tin with a brass doorknob — The charge has to survive someone asking what it was for.

20%

What a ten-year carpet replaced in year eight is worth as a deduction: the two years of life it had left, never the price of a new one.

A deduction is a claim, and every claim needs three things: permission in the statute and the lease, evidence of the change in condition, and a number you can justify. Miss any one and the whole line usually falls.

Wear and tear is a legal standard, not an opinion

Ordinary wear and tear is the deterioration that happens through normal use over time by a reasonably careful occupant. It is not a synonym for "minor". A carpet worn through in a hallway after six years may be wear; a small burn after six weeks is damage.

Item	Wear	Damage
Interior paint	Dulling, scuffs at furniture height	Unapproved colour, crayon, smoke staining
Carpet	Flattening in traffic lanes	Pet staining to the pad, burns, tears
Bathroom	Grout discolouration	Cracked tile, a fan removed, mould from a leak unreported
Doors	Loose hinge, worn handle finish	Hole, removed door, forced frame

Engraved carpet cleaner in an empty room — Returning the unit to the condition it was let in is the tenant's job; cleaning past that is yours.

Ageing the item before you charge

Assign the item a useful life, work out how much of it was left, and charge that fraction. A carpet with a ten-year life replaced in year eight has two years left: charge two-tenths of the replacement, not ten-tenths.

01Assign the useful life you would defend in front of a judge.
02Subtract the years already used.
03Multiply the replacement cost by the remaining fraction.
04Attach the invoice or written estimate to that line.

Full replacement on an aged item loses the whole line

Adjudicators do not usually reduce an unreasonable charge; they strike it. Ageing your own numbers is what keeps the rest of the statement credible.

Cleaning is the most disputed line

Where cleaning is deductible at all, it is deductible to the move-in standard, not to a professional standard you did not provide at move-in. A lease clause requiring professional carpet cleaning regardless of condition is unenforceable in several states.

Charge the actual invoice, not a flat "cleaning fee".
Photograph the condition that justified the call-out.
If the unit was not professionally cleaned before move-in, do not charge for it at move-out.

Engraved receipt spike holding folded slips — Every deduction needs its invoice on the spike — the statement is only as good as the file.

The file that settles it

Signed move-in and move-out condition reports in the same order, dated photographs for every damage line, invoices or estimates, and the ledger showing the rent position. Build it with the move-out inspection checklist and hand it over with the statement from the deduction calculator. In California the photographs are no longer optional: the statute wants them after the unit is handed back and before the work you deduct for, again after that work, and at move-in for tenancies that began on or after July 1, 2025.

Then post it inside the window — 21 calendar days in California (Civ. Code § 1950.5, checked 2026-10-18) — because a perfect statement sent late is often worth nothing at all.

Sources read for this page

Cal. Civ. Code § 1950.5checked 2026-10-18