Landlord making up charges

Check with the town/city/county/state regarding landlord-tenant help. They usually have a website or document that discusses what steps are supposed to happen, and when those steps must occur.

Assuming the fee isn't justified, the jurisdiction they suggest you go to arbitration, or you might have to file a claim through small claims court. The limits and rules for those options are handled on the local level.

Usual issues that happen between the landlord and tenant at the end of the lease involve: wear and tear vs normal use; damages; not paying for the last months rent. There are timelines and requirements regarding all of these issues.

Nobody is trying to get over on you here - someone just made a normal human mistake. The landlord is probably just entering information into a computer program that handles these things. When they put in your early move-out date, probably there was an assumption that you only PAID through the 24th, which is obviously not the case. You paid through the end of month, as required by your lease.

I suggest that you ignore the collector and just call the landlord directly. Explain the situation and ask them to just correct your account and call off the collector.

The carpet seems suspect too unless you trashed it.

The $177 feels illegal to me. I might go as far as leaning that way even if the rental agreement included the rule! (Just because something's in an agreement doesn't make it legally enforceable.)

Had you taken it upon yourself to reduce your last month's rent by 3 days because you turned the keys in early, then I'd agree with the charge. But if the last month is paid in full, the charge doesn't even make sense. It's as if they are charging you $177 to store the keys in a desk for 3 days. If anything it would be far more logical for you to ask them to pay you $177 than the other way around. (It would be wrong to ask, but at least sensible.) Unless someone legitimately messed up and thought they were charging for 3 days late, this seems like a blatant attempt to take advantage of you. And the words "early move out" on the invoice points to it being intentional. I'd fight that charge pretty hard, and might even die on the hill. (I'm getting worked up just answering this question.)

I'd give them a call and ask them if they would have charged you if you had turned the keys in 3 days later. If they say No, give them a chance to remove the charge, or else put the gloves on.

As a side note, apparently your landlord isn't the first to try these shenanigans. In this case the advice was to write a letter and it apparently worked.

Update: A comment by @reffu to the question mentioned a situation where an early move out fee happened due to an automatic refund being triggered first. I'd check to see if that happened, just in case.

Make them prove it

Every single time I've moved out I have had the landlord attempt to charge me for carpet. And every single time, there was a grain of truth to their argument, but it sure wasn't a whole sandbox.

My first apartment, my dog had an accident that irreversibly stained the carpet (trust me I tried) in the living room. Understandably, the landlord wanted to charge me to replace the carpet. Less understandably was that they wanted to charge me to replace the carpet in the bedroom as well.

My second apartment, my dog's anxiety caused him to tear up the carpet at the 4'x4' landing at the bottom of the stairs. I knew it was wrecked and I'd get something about it after move out. And I did, along with a claim that I needed to replace all the other carpet in the unit.

In both of these cases, I was forthright with the damage that I knew about but requested that they demonstrate damages beyond that which justified replacement beyond the areas in question. I requested the following:

• Pictures of the supposed extra damage (beyond reasonable wear and tear);
• Documents proving the age of the carpet when I moved in; and
• A citation to any specific laws that they were basing their decisions upon.

Ideally you've taken your on own pictures prior to move out to push back with, but in both the cases above I found that by insisting they prove it suddenly made the effort associated with chasing down their tenuous claim not worth the effort. And surprisingly, they didn't even try to charge me for the damage that I was definitely responsible for (though counterpoint, they did charge me pet rent and what's that for if not this exact situation).

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Regarding the issue with $177, nope. Don't pay it. If they inadvertently gave you a refund they shouldn't have, then hold onto it for now until you resolve the carpet issue because that inadvertent refund just became leverage.

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One more thing to note in case it's not clear. Their collections office is not a collection agency. Forcing them to prove these things won't have a negative impact on your credit and if it does, you can contest that.

Michigan (where I am a landlord) law differ from PA law, so YMMV. My understanding is that I am not allowed to take damages from a tenant's deposit for "reasonable" damages, such as the normal wear-and-tear on carpeting during your tenancy (if you were in Michigan). For this reason, I perform walk-throughs at the beginning and end. If there's a spot in the carpet at the beginning of tenancy, I make note of it (and the tenant should make sure that I do). These days it's easy to take pictures of everything when you do the initial walk-through. If there's no picture of the carpet on move-in day, we'll assume it's OK. If there's a picture of damage on move-out day, it's on the tenant.

Here's another possibility, the guys repainting after you moved out failed to protect the carpet after you moved out. You need to keep photos on move-out day to prove this. I have a friend who's daughter was cheated out of her deposit by this very thing.

You know your circumstances better than I and if any of your former landlord's charges go beyond the extent of "reasonable" damage while you were there, dispute them. Deal with the landlord directly. It's wise to assume collections people are unprincipled liars and nothing they say should be taken seriously unless it is in writing. If they say the sun is shining, ask them to prove it.

I am a landlord in Colo. I understand "normal wear & tear". But it's not the same as dirt, which is why I don't understand why it's not legal to charge for carpet cleaning, no matter how old it is, unless decrepit. I've found most new tenants are fine moving into new place with some normal wear and tear (though none is certainly better), but they're not so fine about dirt. And as long as I'm upfront and reasonable about cost of cleaning in lease, old tenant is fine about paying it. W&T is a wear pattern in carpet-which is not responsibility of tenant...but dirt is. If carpet is <5y.o. (which I believe is too short a life, esp. if it's burbor),and tenant puts non cleanable spot in one area and matching carpet is not available, what is landlord supposed to do? You've got to replace the whole room. And deduct certain amount for each year of carpet age that tenant is not responsible for. Landlord should just be made whole - not improved at tenant's expense. If you've had a real good tenant that's been there for awhile...cut 'em some slack.