Security deposit deductions that hold up

Every landlord has lived some version of this conversation:

"You're deducting KES 15,000 for the wall? That crack was there when I moved in!"

And here is the uncomfortable truth: without evidence, the tenant might be right — and neither of you can prove it. The deposit conversation is the single most contested moment in a tenancy, and almost every dispute traces back to the same root cause: nobody documented the move-in.

The rule: deductions are deltas

A defensible deduction is not "the wall is cracked." It is:

"The wall was intact at move-in (photo, 12 March, item 4.2 of the signed inspection) and cracked at move-out (photo, 28 August, same item). Repair cost: KES 8,400 (receipt attached)."

Three components, none optional:

1. A baseline — the unit's condition at move-in, item by item, with photos, ideally acknowledged by the tenant.
2. A comparison — the same items, same order, at move-out.
3. A cost — a real receipt or quote for the repair, not a round number.

How to build the baseline

• Use a checklist, not memory. Walk every room with the same template every time: walls, floors, ceilings, fittings, sockets, keys, meters.
• Score each item. A simple condition scale beats prose — "Good / Fair / Poor" is enough, applied consistently.
• Photograph what matters. Wide shot per room, close-ups of anything already imperfect. The photos of existing damage protect the tenant; that's exactly why they make your deductions credible.
• Do it together when you can. A tenant who walked the inspection has very little room to dispute it later.

Fair wear and tear is not damage

Kenyan practice (and basic fairness) distinguishes what time does from what tenants do:

Wear and tear (not deductible)	Damage (deductible)
Paint dulled after three years	Crayon murals, gouged plaster
Carpet worn in walkways	Burn holes, pet stains
A hinge loosened by use	A door kicked off its frame
Sun-faded curtains	Torn or missing curtains

Deducting for wear and tear is the fastest way to turn a routine refund into a fight — and to lose it.

The move-out, done properly

1. Inspect against the baseline, item by item — not from scratch.
2. Mark the deltas. Photograph each one.
3. Price only the deltas, with receipts or quotes.
4. Give the tenant the comparison, the photos and the arithmetic — before the refund conversation.

When the evidence arrives before the argument, there usually is no argument.

Where RentPlus comes in

RentPlus inspections template the checklist, score the items, attach the photos, and pair the move-out against the move-in baseline automatically — deltas surface themselves, and the deposit assessment cites the findings. The accounting module holds deposits as liabilities, so the refund math is always explicit.

The wall conversation becomes a document. Documents don't shout back.