Move-Out Repairs in NYC: What to Fix Before You Hand Back the Keys

Move-out repairs are the last thing standing between you and your deposit, and in New York that deposit is a full month’s rent. The list that actually matters is short and cheap: nail and anchor holes patched and painted (from $140), a room of scuffs touched up (from $150), the original lockset back on the door (from $130), the tub re-caulked (from $130). Usually one visit, usually a few hours, and my minimum visit is $130.

Here’s the rest of it: where state law draws the line between wear and tear and damage, the 14-day rule and the inspection almost nobody asks for, a room-by-room checklist, and what each fix costs.

What counts as normal wear and tear vs damage in a NYC rental?

So what can a landlord deduct from a security deposit in NYC? New York law is clear on the principle even when it’s fuzzy on the examples: unpaid rent, unpaid utility charges owed to the landlord, the cost of moving and storing what you left behind, and the reasonable cost of repairing damage beyond ordinary wear and tear of occupancy. Ordinary wear and tear itself is not deductible. Damage left by the tenant before you is not your problem either. And if the fight reaches a courtroom, the landlord has to prove the amount kept was reasonable, not the other way around.

Nobody publishes an official list, so here’s the version I see in apartments every week:

Usually wear and tear	Usually damage
Faded, sun-bleached paint after a few years	Crayon, grease, smoke staining, a color you painted without permission
Small picture-hook nail holes	Open anchor craters, toggle-bolt holes, TV-mount holes
Traffic lanes worn into carpet, minor floor scuffs	Burns, pet stains soaked into the boards, deep gouges
A door handle gone loose, a door that sticks in August	A hole punched in a door, a drilled or missing lock
Tub caulk gone gray, grout dulled with age	Cracked tile, a chipped sink, a broken toilet seat
Worn weatherstripping around old windows	Water-stained sill under a window A/C installed at the wrong tilt
Burned-out bulbs	The landlord’s light fixture gone because you liked yours better

The short test: wear and tear is what happens when a person simply lives in an apartment. Damage is what happens on top of that.

Do I have to patch nail holes when I move out in NYC?

The honest answer: small nail holes from picture hooks are usually treated as ordinary wear, so they make a weak deduction. Anchor holes are a different animal. A plastic anchor pulled out of drywall leaves a crater with a torn paper face, and closing it properly means backing, compound, sanding, spot priming and paint. Landlords deduct for those all day, and they aren’t wrong to.

Read your lease before you decide to fight about it. Plenty of NYC leases ask you to hand the apartment back in the same condition you got it, ordinary wear and tear excepted, and some spell out patching in so many words.

One NYC-specific fact worth knowing: under the city’s Housing Maintenance Code, an owner of a building with three or more apartments has to repaint occupied units every three years. That repaint is a routine ownership cost, not a repair you caused. So “we had to paint the place” is a thin line item on its own. “You left the walls full of open anchor holes and a gallery wall’s worth of scars” is not thin at all.

Practical math: patch and paint starts at $140 and one visit usually covers every hole in the apartment. A dispute costs you the walkthrough, then a written demand, then possibly small claims. Patch the wall.

How to get your security deposit back in NYC: the 14-day rule

Since the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, the deposit on most New York rentals is capped at one month’s rent, and prepaid “first and last” is out. After you move out, the clock starts:

• 14 days. The landlord returns the deposit, and if anything is kept, sends a written itemized statement saying exactly why.
• Miss the deadline and the right to keep any of it is forfeited. That is the statute, not a negotiating position.
• Interest. In buildings with six or more apartments, deposits belong in an interest-bearing account, with the landlord allowed to keep 1% a year as an administrative fee.

The move most tenants never make is the pre-move-out inspection. You can ask for one, it happens no earlier than two weeks and no later than one week before the tenancy ends, the landlord gives at least 48 hours written notice of the date and time, and afterward you get an itemized statement of the repairs or cleaning that are proposed as deductions. Then comes the good part: you get the chance to cure those items before the tenancy ends.

That turns a surprise deduction into a to-do list with a deadline. Which is exactly the kind of list I show up with a drill for.

A sane move-out timeline:

1. Three weeks out: ask for the inspection in writing. Text or email, so there’s a record.
2. Two to one weeks out: walk the inspection with them. Take your own photos of everything they point at.
3. The cure window: book the repairs. Keep receipts and before/after photos.
4. Keys day: photograph every wall, floor, fixture and appliance in the empty apartment, with timestamps. Compare against the photos you took on move-in day. (You did take those. If you’re on the other side of this move, my move-in checklist explains why they matter.)
5. Within 14 days: deposit plus itemized statement, or a written demand from you.

Scope note, because New York loves an exception: the statute above covers most non-rent-stabilized apartments. Rent-stabilized tenants have their own deposit rules through the state (HCR), with the same one-month cap and the same itemized-statement logic.

And the necessary disclaimer: I patch walls for a living, I am not a lawyer, and none of this is advice about your specific lease. For your situation, the free sources are genuinely good: the NYC Tenant Resource Portal, 311’s tenant helpline, HCR for rent-stabilized questions, Legal Aid and the city’s tenant legal services for real disputes, and the state Attorney General’s office for rent security complaints. Small claims court in New York City handles up to $10,000, which covers almost every deposit fight.

The move-out repair checklist for an NYC apartment

Go room by room with the lights on, in daylight, with nothing on the walls. Everything looks fine with a couch in front of it.

Walls. Every nail hole, every anchor crater, every TV bracket. Patched, primed and painted, from $140 for a drywall patch. If the scuffs are everywhere rather than in three spots, a room of touch-up painting from $150 is faster and looks better than twelve dabs of mismatched paint. Prewar plaster is its own craft, and I quote that from photos.

Doors. The one that never closed right since last summer: planing and hinge repair from $130. Also check the strike plate, the closet doors that jumped their track, and any door where a knob has been punching the wall for a year (that dent is a patch).

Locks. If you changed the lockset, put the original back, from $130. If you lost a key, replacing the lockset or deadbolt from $130 is cheaper than whatever the management company’s locksmith invoices. Retrofit smart locks come off in minutes and the original keyway goes back.

Bathroom and kitchen. Gray, peeling caulk around the tub reads as neglect in a walkthrough even when it’s just age. Re-caulking is from $130 and it’s the single highest-impact hour in the whole apartment. Same visit: loose toilet seat, a shower head you swapped, the sink stopper.

Fixtures and hardware you swapped. The dimmer, the ceiling fixture, the fancy faucet. If the landlord’s original is in a closet, put it back: a light fixture swap is from $130. If you threw the original out, buy the closest match and install it before anyone notices.

Shelves and mounted things. Taking a floating shelf down takes five minutes. Making the wall look like it was never there is the part people underestimate: that’s the $140 patch again. Ask your landlord first, in writing, whether they want the shelves left in place. Some do.

Window A/C. Get it out, sealed up and stored right: removal and storage prep from $130. Check the sill underneath while you’re there, because a unit that sat level instead of tilted usually leaves a stain that needs paint.

Everything else. Blinds that never went back up, the closet rod, the childproofing hardware, the mirror on the back of the door. Make one list, send me photos, get one number.

What do move-out repairs cost in NYC?

Most move-out lists are a few hundred dollars of work, sometimes less, and the number is driven almost entirely by how many holes are in the walls. My prices are flat, published, and the same on a Sunday:

Move-out job	Price (from)
Drywall hole patch + paint	$140
Wall touch-up painting (per room)	$150
Lockset / deadbolt replacement	$130
Door planing / hinge repair	$130
Bathtub re-caulking	$130
Floating shelf (per shelf)	$130
Light fixture swap	$130
Window A/C removal + storage prep	$130
Odd jobs and long punch lists	$75 to $95 an hour
Minimum visit	$130

Materials are extra and itemized. Bundle the list into one visit: the minimum applies once, not once per task, and a typical move-out punch list (walls patched, one room touched up, tub re-caulked, original lockset back) lands in the few-hundred-dollar range. Against a deposit worth a full month of New York rent, that math isn’t close. Full rates live on my pricing page, the wider breakdown of what a handyman should cost in this city is in my handyman cost guide, and if walls are your whole problem, the drywall repair cost guide goes deeper on holes, plaster and paint matching.

Worth noting that moving in NYC got a little lighter on the front end: since the FARE Act took effect in June 2025, the broker fee is on whoever hired the broker, so tenants who didn’t hire one generally don’t pay one. The back end, the deposit, is still where money quietly disappears.

When to call a handyman before you hand back the keys

Hiring a handyman before moving out isn’t a luxury purchase, it’s deposit arithmetic: a few hundred dollars of work against a month of New York rent. Call me when:

• You walked the pre-move-out inspection and came away with a list. That list is a quote request, and I’ll price it from photos.
• The walls have anchor holes, mount holes, or a mystery dent behind where the dresser stood.
• The original lockset, fixture or hardware needs to go back on before anyone measures the deposit.
• Your final walkthrough is Monday and it’s Saturday night. I work evenings and Sundays, and same-day slots exist when the calendar allows.
• You want the whole punch list done in one visit, with before/after photos you can forward if the deduction conversation gets weird.

And if you’re on the other side of the deal: I do turnover work for owners and property managers too, patches, paint, locksets and re-caulking between tenants. Details on the landlord page.

Text me photos of the walls, the door and the tub, and I’ll send a flat quote before I come. I answer my own phone, prices don’t change at the door, and I sweep the sanding dust. 5.0 stars across 67 Google reviews. Start at the pricing page or just get in touch.