charging for damages

[LuAnn Vigen]

I have a tenant moving out, the cat scratched the heck out of the carpet, under the door into the bedroom and hallway. The carpet is 5 years old, do I charge for replacing the carpet in the bedroom and hallway or just for repairing it? (I think I can take the carpet from the closet)

I would like to hear how other landlords handle this situation.

[Jim Shepard]

I typically get about 7 - 8 years out of my rental carpeting so I would charge them for 2/7th of the cost of new carpeting. The carpet looks really dirty in the pic. Since they are the ones that breached the lease by not telling you about the pet, I would think a judge would think this to be reasonable. All depends on your state laws.
I also have a sentence in my lease that states "if an animal is brought into the rental without my permission, it is assumed it was brought in the first day." I then charge them $25 per month per pet plus a $275 per pet security deposit.