End of lease in rental house?

Question

Hi,

Our lease is up in our rental. When we moved in 4 tiles around the fireplace were cracked, which was noted in a damage report before we began renting. They are very loose and our son who was 18 months kept fiddling with them. After he nicked his finger we removed the broken tiles. All the tiles then popped up and we discovered that they were set in concrete. We kept them all for our landlord to replace, which he never did. He now says we must pay to have it fixed! How is it our fault that the tiles didn't stay in place if they were never set in correctly anyway? We didn't cause the initial breakage.

thanks

Answer 1

Landlords can say whatever they want.  That doesn't make them right.  In this case you have evidence that you notified the landlord of a problem with the tiles, and I assume he never fixed them.  One thing you might do if you know of a good home repair person is to get them to come out and state in writing something to the effect that the tiles were set incorrectly and it was inevitable they were all going to fall down.  That would be a great piece of evidence to have to prove it was not your fault.

The thing is it is almost impossible to conceive of a way in which the tenant could be responsible for tiles falling off a fireplace.  I don't think your landlord has much of a case.

Check out the landlord/tenant laws in your state to make sure you do everything according to the letter of the law in regard to moving out.  These laws will state what the landlord can do with your security deposit, etc.  

Answer 2

Based on your report, you are not responsible. If he charges you, take landlord to small claims court, or, better still,  ask for landlord-tenant mediation.

Answer 3

did you or the landlord do a walk thru before you gained occupancy? This should have been noted so therefore you should not be responsible for this

Answer 4

Sounds to me like you have a very good argument.  If the landlord does not want to work with you, then go to Home Depot and purchase some grout.  You can get it in a repair tube.  Put the tiles back up using the tube of grout and forget about it.  

If he is going to be nasty about it, then do the best that you can.  I would certainly not pay big bucks to have something fixed that was defective in the first place.

Good Luck.