Normally it is the Landlord's duty to repaint the house and lay new carpets after a tenant moves out especially for a long period like 5 years. In your case as well, since 2-3 years is the normal period for wear and tear of paint and carpets, you are not liable to pay him money for them. Here is a link for Tenancy laws specific to Oregon State: Tenancy Laws
I know it may have been 5 years ago but you should have signed a lease agreement. This being a legal document, you should have put it somewhere for safe keeping. I have seen the landlord add such things like this. Then it is legal and binding and if taken to court, whoever it states in the lease is responsible. If there are no added things to the lease, then wear and tear should be covered by the landlord. Damage to the walls, carpet (stains too), anything that goes beyond normal wear and tear, you, the renter would be responsible for.
Painting is not a cost the tennant pays when moving out. If the carpets need replaced, they have a sliding scale of wear and tear based on when it was new carpet. The charges should be explained,and be fair
Go to landlord & tenant laws for Oregon. Theres a lot to read so you may have missed it. If they are refusing to do a walk though before you leave make sure you take pictures of each room, the 4 walls to each room, even closet & above all the bathroom, walls , shower walls , floors, sink , toilet , around toilet base. Kitchen cabinets inside & out of all, back yard etc. Try have dated when pic's taken. Have a second set make to give them, send to them buy signature mail or hand to them but have witness to the fact. Leave no openings to sue you. If possible go to there house ask for walk through with a witness. Nope , you don't owe up on everything they did before your moving in, only for any damages you left behind. Make sure all holes filled from pic's. You only need to make sure it's clean , no holes, no garage left behind in house, take pic of garage barrels too. Carpet , unless you have it pretty dirty , they clean, painting , landlord do after every tennant. You want to dot all your I's with them! If you made a deposited, they can only hold 30 days, look up laws believe possible owe you interest for the 5 years . After 30 days , ( they haven't paid you ) you maybe able to ask for double your money back on the deposit money .
I have been having the same problems with my landlord, we recently moved out of rented accomodation into our own house which we have needed to do nothing too!!! We have had several phone calls from the landlord saying we need to replace carpets, paint walls and even replace the lawn!!! We only lived there a year and as far as we were concerned the condition of the property is perfect! We spent two full evenings in there painting, shampooing carpets and cleaning the windows inside out. We had to pay for our own paint and all the needed products to go with it, a vax and all the cleaning products to go with that too!! The lawn was in a terrible condition when we moved in along with the windows!!. Everytime we go and do everything he says there is always another list to follow, we are only doing it to get out deposit back. Throughout the time we were there we complained about the dodgy fixings, door handles fell off within the first 2weeks, we had bugs, extracter fans were never fitted and he never informed us of the noisey neighbours. He sent someone in to then fix extracter fans after we had moved out which they made a big mess doing, he then advised us that it was our responcibility to go back and clean it!!Basically the whole experience was awful. We don't know what to do now we have spent so much money doing it up to very high standards and he is still refusing to return our deposit. He has not needed to do anything to the property and we are both becoming very aggrivated!
According to me, Painting is not a cost the tenant pays when moving out. If the carpets need replaced, they have a sliding scale of wear and tear based on when it was new carpet. The charges should be explained,and be fair.
I don’t think that there is any responsibility on the tenant to paint or replace anything in an apartment at all, unless things are damaged and/or stained. Cupboards and storage shelfs should be fixed if they were in good order when you moved in and generally keeping the place in as good a working it was when you first saw it if not better is a good rule to live by.
