Son has just started his second year in your typical per-bedroom lease property (4bd/4bth unit). Name of the property owner not critical, but let's just say his complex is part of an "American campus".

During the summer, management decided that the "common area" carpet needed "replacement", and are billing residents for the full cost of new carpet. When my son moved back in a few weeks ago, he didn't even notice the difference (partly because he lives in the bedroom downstairs where there is no carpet - the common carpet is upstairs between the bedrooms of the other guys). The old carpet was certainly not damaged in any way nor did it have stains, etc... just normal wear and tear for carpet that was no-telling how old a year ago when they moved in. I've since learned that a LARGE number of residents near his are being billed for carpet replacement in the same fashion.

It seems a pretty blatant case of the property owners doing routing carpet replacement after X number of years and billing the residents to recoup the costs! My understanding is that the kids are not responsible for normal wear and tear, and even if there were stains etc..they could only be possibly liable for one year divided by the age/service life of the carpet; corrrect? Again, there were no stains, etc..and no documentation from the property to show otherwise - they did all of this while the residents were home for the summer!

In most cased like this, residents are fighting for a return of their deposit after they've moved out. In this case, my son and his roommates are still living there, and are expected to pay the "carpet replacement fee" by the end of this month.

Before I tell the property to shove it, am I missing something here? If the management tries to stick to their shaky ground, they will levy late fees beginning 1 Oct and could threaten eviction etc.. No, seriously, their automated system has already spit out such a letter; just ridiculous.

This one is NOT about the money; it's about the principle of not being taken advantage of and keeping my foot in the ground when a huge management company tries to run roughshod over its tenants. It would be a good fight/learning experience for my son, but I want him to concentrate on his tough semester of Calc II and programming courses - hence my involvement. thanks; sorry for the length

Is this a Callaway property? They were doing this back when I was in college.

No, not Callaway

I'm not sure about your issue, however I do know that MATH152 is terrible. Good luck with that, and if there's anywhere he can take calc 3 / diffeq somewhere over the summer I'd strongly recommend doing that.

Send them a certified letter to dispute the charge. Use the lease language as reference and and any case law you can find. Tough spot since they are going continue their automated demand.

First, what does the lease say? That is the first place I would be looking for relief.

You may want to pay it now just to keep your losses to a minimum if you end up losing in the end, and attach some language along the lines of "paid under protest" or "payment does not settle all claims." You will want to consult with an attorney to get the exact language to protect your right to sue later. Best of luck to you.

I would call the property manager and ask them about it. If they say there was damage, then ask them to provide evidence of the damage beyond wear and tear. They should have taken pictures. Also, remember "wear and tear" to a college kid is different than to an adult. The fact that your son lives downstairs and rarely walks on the carpet is irrelevant to the management.

If you don't get anywhere, then PM me, I know some of their corporate people.

Thanks for the replies, everyone. Management has already replied that they have no pictures; they only state that a multitude of units were not able to be cleaned to their satisfaction; therefore the carpet had to be replaced.

I've gone back and forth with the on-site manager, and he seems to make his case weaker with each reply. He's admitted to making a bulk order of replacement carpet before walk-throughs were even done, so one can gather that carpet was going to be replaced regardless of condition. I still have a couple of weeks to take this to their corporate level (I may PM you soon BOM; thanks) with supporting tenant law.

Need to be recording all of these calls. They could be the killer.

As somebody else already said, what does the lease say? It's pointless to do anything else until you read through the lease and make sure this isn't covered.

Update?

E-mailed corporate, but they didn't bother to reply. Complained enough to on-site management that they came up with an arbitrary 30% discount on what they were originally trying to charge me (all along admitting that they had no pictures to back up their claim of damage). This brought the fee in line to what I'd likely "spend" in time, money, and effort driving from my home in Pearland to file in another county's small claims court. They knew this, and that seems to be their MO - charge multiple residents for carpet replacement, but keep the amounts small enough to discourage legal recourse against them.

They received so many complaints from residents about bogus damage claims, that they at one point had to send a mass email (I wish I could have seen the other addresses; I could have formed a nice little group) apologizing for taking so long getting back to everyone having issue with them.

I spoke to an attorney, who agreed that a small claims case would greatly favor me, but I'd simply have to decide whether it was worth it, especially with my son still living there.

Bottom line - I caved and paid like countless others must have, mostly to keep things civil for my son. He'll move out next spring, and I've learned a ton about how to protect ourselves moving forward. If he would have moved out this time, I would have filed for sure, even if I spent 3x what the fee was. It never was about the money, it was the principle of feeling absolutely 100% that we were being screwed.

Now that you have paid, you could go door to door to find the other people who were screwed and threaten suit as a group,