An inspection is not an opinion about how nice a property looks. It is a comparison against a document, carried out by somebody working down a list.
That changes what is worth doing. The items that cost money are the ones that are easy to photograph and hard to argue with. Subjective wear — carpet a year older, paint aged evenly — is much harder to charge for and usually is not.
So the work that protects a deposit is the work that removes photographable items. That is not the same as making the property look its best, and it is a great deal cheaper.
Work from the check-in report
If you have it, that is the list. Work through it in order, item by item, against the wording the other side will use.
If you do not have it, walk the property with your phone and photograph everything a reasonable person would flag. The point is to work against a list rather than against a feeling about which bits look worst.
What actually costs people money
Every fixing hole. Shelves, brackets, mirrors, TV mounts, hooks. Filled, sanded and touched in — not just filled, because filler that has not been painted reads as damage.
Sealant that has gone black or is peeling. Around tubs, showers and countertops. This is one of the highest-impact items on the list because it reads as “not cleaned” however clean the property actually is. Cut out and renewed, not smeared over.
Doors that no longer work properly. Catching, not latching, a loose handle, a closer that slams. Usually an adjustment rather than a replacement.
Running toilets and dripping faucets. Reported as wear, charged as damage. A fill valve or a cartridge.
Slow drains. Cleared properly, not plunged until they move.
Leaks under sinks. The cabinet nobody opened for a year.
Marks where furniture sat, and the touch-in that removes them.
Bulbs, batteries and smoke alarms. Trivial, flagged every time.
The order to do it in
- Get the report, or make one
- Book the work with time to spare, not against the walkthrough date
- Do it in one visit — the cost of small jobs is almost all travel
- Get a written note of what was done, item by item
- Attend the walkthrough with the check-in report in hand
That last one matters. An inspector working from the same document as you is a much shorter conversation than one working from memory.
Why documentation matters afterwards
If a deduction is later proposed for something that was repaired, a dated record of the work is the difference between a fact and a recollection.
That is worth asking for explicitly. Any tradesperson doing this work should be able to give you a list of what was done without being asked twice.
For landlords and managers
Same work, different timing. Between tenancies, before the next viewing rather than after the last inspection.
Clearing the snagging list in one visit is cheaper than three reactive callouts in the first month of a new tenancy, and a property that shows well lets faster.
Wear and tear, or damage
Florida law lets a landlord deduct for damage but not for ordinary wear and tear, and almost every deposit dispute is an argument about which side of that line something falls on.
The distinction that holds up is cause rather than appearance. A sealant line that has gone gray over three years is wear — silicone does that, and nobody did anything to it. A sealant line that is missing in one section because a shower screen was pulled off the wall is damage. A waste trap that has finally corroded through is wear. One that is blocked with hair is neither: it is cleaning, and cleaning is yours.
Applied to the things that actually appear on Miami statements:
- Limescale on fixtures — cleaning, not damage, and cheap to remove yourself.
- A seized shower cartridge — wear, in this water, on any tenancy longer than a year.
- A running toilet — usually wear, unless the flapper has been tied up with something.
- A cracked basin or pan — damage, almost always.
- Scuffed or holed walls from mounting — damage, and the most commonly charged item on the list.
Getting it in writing before you spend anything
The mistake that costs the most is fixing things well and quietly, and then having no way to show it. Two habits prevent it.
Ask first, in writing. If the landlord owes the repair, an email saying so, sent before you pay anybody, is what decides the argument later. Texts count. Phone calls do not.
Photograph the finished work next to the check-in report. The report is the baseline the deduction will be argued against, and a photograph that matches it line for line is far harder to dispute than an invoice, which only proves you spent money.
If you are moving out this month, our move-out checklist is the same ground in one printable page.