How much to charge for a damaged refrigerator?

[Brent William]

Hi, 
I am looking for advise on how much to charge back a vacating Tenant for clear and malicious damage to a near new stainless steel refrigerator? The tenant was in the property for 12 months and the fridge now has multiple, noticeable significant scratches on both of the French doors, which were not there previously. I have called the manufacturer and they don't sell just the two doors alone. When they took possession of the property, it was about 2 years old and a new replacement fridge is $2,995 + tax. We have a sufficient amount of security deposit, so I am considering charging them the remainder of it's useful life (+/- 90%) based on 20 years, purchasing a new one, and offering them the old one if they wish to haul it away at their cost. Any advise or guidance would be super appreciated. Thanks!

[Jonathan R McLaughlin]

@Brent William . I believe you have to use the useful life and price of the old fridge not replacement value, but I could be wrong and it could be state specific

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Brent William:

Hi, 
I am looking for advise on how much to charge back a vacating Tenant for clear and malicious damage to a near new stainless steel refrigerator? The tenant was in the property for 12 months and the fridge now has multiple, noticeable significant scratches on both of the French doors, which were not there previously. I have called the manufacturer and they don't sell just the two doors alone. When they took possession of the property, it was about 2 years old and a new replacement fridge is $2,995 + tax. We have a sufficient amount of security deposit, so I am considering charging them the remainder of it's useful life (+/- 90%) based on 20 years, purchasing a new one, and offering them the old one if they wish to haul it away at their cost. Any advise or guidance would be super appreciated. Thanks!

Malicious? You believe the purposefully scratched the fridge to cause you harm? Either these are really obvious scratches or you're getting too emotional about it.

The damage is completely cosmetic. The refrigerator is still functional and has value. You can only charge depreciated value for the damaged item, not replacement cost for the entire fridge.

I would start by determining depreciated value. Even without the scratches, I bet you couldn't sell it for more than $2,000 which tells you the remaining value. They only damaged the doors, which is no more than 1/3 the cost of the total fridge and they only damaged them cosmetically, meaning they are still fully functional and therefore you can't charge full replacement cost. So you're talking about somewere around $400, not $3,000.

Steel appliances scratch easily and require care that many tenants don't understand. You should consider a different style.

[Brent William]

Thank you for your input. The scratches are very noticeable from about 15 feet away and don't resemble anything even close to standard wear and tear, but agreed, perhaps not malicious. We found out that GE does sell the replacement SS doors individually, so we are going that route. It isn't cheap, but should arrive at about 1/2 the cost of a new fridge once installed, which we will bill back to the Tenant.