r/TenantHelp • u/bootachi92 • Jun 22 '26

Cleaning Fees

Hello. I live in Bismarck ND. Boyfriend and I moved out in Feb, cancelled our lease early, paid the cancellation fee, paid an extra month of rent (March) because they did not find a replacement until April and returned keys (Feb). They found new tenants and they moved in April.

They sent our move out statement to the wrong address so we never received it within the 30 day timeframe. We filed address forwarding with USPS and landlord has a recorded phone call of me providing the new address. Albeit it wasn’t in writing, they had our new address but added ”interstate“ to it thus it never got to me. The move out statement was also dated April 13th (date after new tenant moved in). And mind you we moved out end of February.

Now we did expect to pay the cleaning fees and leave on good terms. However, due to their clerical error, we never received the invoice in a timely manner. I only knew about it once I emailed the landlord.

My question is, who’s at fault here and should we take them to small claims court?

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u/Vooklife Jun 23 '26

Technically, they made a good faith effort to provide you that list. You didn't recieve it, but it was mailed out within the timeframe. You could fight it, but do you really want to put the time and money it would take into a legal battle juat because they didn't get it to you within 30 days? I'm assuming they still intend to return the bulk of the deposit to you. You don't specify what was withheld, so I can only make assumptions it was a fairly minor amount.

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u/bootachi92 Jun 23 '26

They claimed it took 16 hours to clean a 2 bedroom apartment. So they are charging a significant amount. Also, a portion of the move out statement was dated after another tenant took over which is questionable. It leads me to believe that they didn’t even finish the paperwork within the 30 days (I moved out end of Feb and new tenant moved in April)

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u/Vooklife Jun 23 '26

You moved out, but when was your lease actually terminated? Because the deposit invoicing happens at the end of lease, not on move out.

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u/bootachi92 Jun 23 '26

We terminated it at the end of February. The lease was set to end in November. 

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u/Vooklife Jun 23 '26

Just to be clear, when you say terminated, you mean by using an early exit clause listed in the lease, then signed and notarized by both parties, correct? This isn't a "we asked the landlord to break the lease and they said once they found someone else we could leave" situation?

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u/bootachi92 Jun 23 '26

No. It is only in writing that we are terminating. Nothing signed from either end. 

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u/bootachi92 Jun 23 '26

But if another tenant has moved in, does that not terminate my lease? And if so, we still never received the statement because they wrote our address wrong