Is There a Fee Every Time a Tenant Moves Out?

What is a move-out fee? It depends on who is paying. For the owner of a rental in Fort Worth, Keller or North Richland Hills, it is whatever the property manager charges when a tenant leaves: some companies fold the move-out inspection, the deposit accounting and the turnover coordination into the monthly fee, and others bill each one as a separate line and then add the leasing fee for the next tenant. For a tenant, it is a charge taken out of the security deposit, and Texas law limits what that can be.

This guide separates the two, lists every owner-side charge that can attach to a move-out, shows what Texas law lets a landlord deduct from the deposit, and works one turnover through each of our plans. What the turnover itself costs in vacancy and repairs is covered in rental turnover: what it costs, how long it takes and how to shorten it.

What is a move-out fee, and who pays it?

Here are the charges that show up when a tenant leaves a Texas rental, who pays each one, and what controls it:

How to read this table: the first five rows are between you and your manager, and the last two are between the landlord and the tenant. No row moves a manager's fee into the tenant's deposit.

Every owner-side charge that can attach to a move-out

These are the charges a management agreement can attach to a move-out. No single company charges all of them, but check each one against the agreement in front of you.

• Move-out inspection fee. A charge for walking the house after the tenant leaves, photographing it and producing the condition report.
• Security deposit accounting or disposition fee. A charge for itemizing deductions, preparing the written accounting Texas law requires, and sending the refund.
• Turnover or make-ready coordination fee. A charge for getting bids, scheduling vendors and checking the work between tenants, sometimes expressed as a percentage of the make-ready cost.
• Rekey fee. The locksmith's charge for rekeying, which Property Code 92.156 requires within seven days after each tenant turnover date, sometimes with a coordination charge on top.
• Utility transfer or vacancy utility fee. A charge for switching utilities into the manager's or owner's name while the house is empty.
• Vacancy or minimum monthly fee. A flat charge some agreements apply while the house is empty; it belongs on this list because it starts at move-out.
• Leasing fee. The charge for placing the next tenant, which is a separate matter and is almost always charged.

Add a maintenance markup on the make-ready invoices and you can have seven lines from one tenant leaving. The question is not whether any single one is fair. It is whether the work behind them is being paid for once.

Which move-out charges are fair

Some of these are real work that happens only at turnover, and charging for them is honest if the charge is disclosed. The rekey is a hard cost paid to a locksmith. A make-ready coordination fee can be fair when the turnover is substantial, say a full repaint, flooring and a dozen vendor visits, because managing that project is hours of work. The leasing fee is fair for the reasons covered in leasing fees explained.

Fairness has two tests. First, the charge must be in the written fee schedule, with an amount or a formula. Second, the work must not already be covered by another fee. A move-out inspection is a reasonable thing to pay for if inspections are not included in the monthly fee. It is not reasonable to pay for it twice, once as a move-out inspection and again as the move-in inspection inside the leasing fee for the same visit.

The three ways owners get charged twice at turnover

Double charging at move-out is rarely a single bold line. It is usually two fees that both claim the same hour of work. The three patterns to look for:

• Inspection counted twice. The move-out inspection and the move-in inspection for the next tenant are often the same walkthrough, done once after the make-ready. Paying a move-out inspection fee and a leasing fee that also lists the move-in inspection is paying for one walk twice.
• Coordination counted twice. A make-ready coordination fee plus a percentage markup on every make-ready invoice are both charges for the same supervision. One or the other can be defended. Both together is a doubled margin on your own repair bill.
• Deposit accounting counted twice. The deposit disposition letter is a legal step the manager must complete anyway. If the agreement already describes deposit handling as part of management, a separate accounting fee is charging for a duty already included.

When you see two fees around the same event, ask the manager to describe the specific work behind each one. If the descriptions overlap, one of the fees should go.

What Texas law lets a landlord deduct from the deposit

Where the money comes from is a separate question from whether a fee is fair. The security deposit is governed by Subchapter C of Property Code Chapter 92, and four sections do most of the work.

• 92.104(a): before returning a deposit, the landlord may deduct damages and charges for which the tenant is legally liable under the lease or as a result of breaching it.
• 92.104(b): no part of a deposit may be kept to cover normal wear and tear.
• 92.104(c): if anything is kept, the tenant gets the balance with a written description and itemized list of all deductions.
• 92.103 and 92.107: the refund is due on or before the 30th day after the tenant surrenders the home, once the tenant has given a forwarding address in writing.

A manager's own fee for inspecting the house or preparing the accounting is owed by the owner under the management agreement, not by the tenant under the lease, so it does not belong on that itemized list. It comes out of your funds or the next rent received.

The penalty for getting this wrong lands on the owner. Under 92.109, a landlord who keeps a deposit in bad faith owes $100, three times the amount wrongfully withheld and the tenant's attorney's fees, and a landlord who has not refunded or itemized by the 30th day is presumed to have acted in bad faith. Section 92.001 defines the landlord as the owner, lessor or sublessor of the dwelling, and a manager only if the manager purports to be one of those in the lease. How deductions are itemized is covered in the move-out inspection: how deposits get itemized fairly in Texas. This is general information, not legal advice.

A worked example: one turnover on each Perpetual plan

Illustrative only, not a quote. A tenant moves out of a house renting for $2,000 a month. The make-ready needs paint touch-up, carpet cleaning, a rekey and a yard cleanup, and the vendor invoices total $1,200. Here is what our published price sheet produces on each plan:

How to read this table: the owner also pays the $1,200 of vendor work itself, and the example assumes the coordination percentage applies to every make-ready invoice. Which work it covers on your home is written in your agreement. Plans are negotiable case by case, and the final numbers are set after the rental analysis.

Run the same arithmetic on any other quote, and run it on a heavy turnover as well as an easy one. A $6,000 make-ready with a coordination fee and a separate markup both scaling with the bill is where two fee schedules that looked alike come apart.

What to ask before signing, and what to look for in the statement after

Before signing, ask these questions and get the answers in the fee schedule:

• List every charge that can occur between one tenant leaving and the next one paying rent.
• Is the move-out inspection included in the monthly fee, charged separately, or included in the leasing fee as the move-in inspection?
• Is there any fee on the make-ready beyond the vendor invoices, and if so is it a flat amount or a percentage?
• Is the deposit accounting included in management?
• Who pays the rekey, and is there a coordination charge on top of the locksmith?

After a turnover, read the statement for that month against the list. Every charge should map to a line in the fee schedule. If one does not, ask. A manager who provides the original vendor invoices and a clear owner portal makes that check take ten minutes. Our pricing and fees page shows what a schedule looks like with every plan's lines published.

The move-out fee that matters most is the one you avoid

Every charge in this guide is multiplied by the number of turnovers. An owner whose tenants stay four years pays the stack once. An owner whose tenants leave every year pays it four times, plus four vacancies and four make-readies.

So when you compare managers on move-out fees, also ask how they handle renewals and how long their tenants typically stay. The renewal side is in lease renewals and turnovers and in how to keep good tenants longer.

How Perpetual handles this

Perpetual Property Management is broker-owned, with our office at 5755 Rufe Snow Dr in North Richland Hills, and we manage homes in Keller, North Richland Hills, Fort Worth and nearby. Our price sheet is public, and it lists no line called a move-out fee, a move-out inspection fee or a deposit accounting fee. What it does list for a turnover:

• Tenant placement: 50% of one month's rent on Full Service and Investor Special, 75% on Standard, charged when a tenant is placed.
• Coordination: maintenance coordination at 5% of cost (Full Service) or 4.9% (Standard), and make-ready coordination at 3% to 5% of cost (Investor Special). It is a percentage of the vendor's invoice, and the original invoice is always in your portal.
• If the tenant renews instead: $150, $200 or $149 depending on the plan.

Under The Perpetual Promise, every move-in and move-out gets a 360-degree condition inspection, subject to the Guarantee Addendum. Deposits are held, accounted for and returned or itemized on the Property Code timeline. And if a tenant we place defaults and is removed, or breaks the lease, within the first 6 months, we find a new tenant with no additional leasing fee.

Plans are negotiable case by case, so the exact turnover lines for your home are confirmed in writing before you sign. To see them, request a free rental analysis or call 682-593-7033.

The takeaway: One tenant leaving should produce one set of charges for one set of work, listed in writing before you sign, and the best move-out fee is the turnover that never happens.

Questions owners ask

Property management in Keller, North Richland Hills and Fort Worth. How full-service management works in Tarrant County →