"Full repaint after one year": what the law and age say

You lived somewhere for a year, left it clean, and the itemized list includes a full interior repaint. Is that a fair charge? The answer depends on what happened to the walls, what your state’s statute says about wear and tear, and what the landlord can document.

01Paint and wear and tear

Paint dulls, scuffs and marks with ordinary living. The statutes we have read bar deductions for normal or ordinary wear and tear, and California adds that a landlord can’t claim for “the cumulative effects of ordinary wear and tear occurring during any one or more tenancies.” A repaint that would have happened between tenants anyway is the kind of cost those rules describe.

Delaware frames the deposit as covering damage that exceeds normal wear and tear “or which cannot be corrected by painting and ordinary cleaning,” which treats routine painting as part of the ordinary turnover of a unit.

02When paint can be charged

• Walls painted a colour the lease didn’t allow, or left half-painted.
• Large marks, crayon, or stains that ordinary cleaning won’t remove.
• Many holes or patches that need more than touch-up.

Even then, the charge should be reasonable for the work actually needed. California limits claims for materials and work “to a reasonable amount necessary to restore the premises back to the condition it was in at the inception of the tenancy, exclusive of ordinary wear and tear.” A few marked walls are not a whole-unit repaint.

03Ask for the documents

Where the statute requires documentation, ask for it: invoices from a painter, or the landlord’s time and hourly rate for their own work (California, Washington), and in California photos taken before and after the work when deductions are made. A flat “repaint fee” with no breakdown is worth questioning.

04Raise the paint’s age

If the walls were painted before you moved in, the charge can be compared with how much of the paint’s life remained. We haven’t found a published useful-life figure for interior paint that we can cite, so Fair Charge asks you to enter one you can support (for example, a manufacturer’s statement for the paint used, if you know it) and labels it as yours.

05A worked example

Suppose the list charges $1,200 to repaint, the walls were painted two years before you moved in, you stayed one year, and you decide a 5-year life is a fair assumption for the paint (your choice, not a published figure). At move-out the paint was 3 years into a 5-year life, so 2 of 5 years were left. Fair Charge’s prorated estimate is $1,200 × 2 ÷ 5 = $480, a gap of $720. If the marks were ordinary wear, the argument is that none of it should be charged; if some walls were damaged, the estimate is a way to say what share is fair. Either way, say how you got the number and where the life came from.

If you don’t know when the walls were last painted, ask. A landlord who claims a repaint was needed is usually the person who knows when it was last done.

06What to write

State when the paint was last done (if you know), describe the walls at move-out with reference to your photos, quote your state’s wear-and-tear language, ask for the documentation the statute requires, and say what you consider a fair amount, if any. Send it in a way you can prove.

Sources

1. Cal. Civ. Code §1950.5 (California Legislative Information). leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=1950.5.&lawCode=CIV
2. 25 Del. C. §5514 (Delaware Code). delcode.delaware.gov/title25/c055/index.html
3. RCW 59.18.280 (Washington State Legislature). app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=59.18.280
4. Tex. Prop. Code ch. 92, subch. C (Texas Legislature). tcss.legis.texas.gov/resources/PR/htm/PR.92.htm
5. N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law §7-108 (New York State Senate). www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/7-108