This is a worked example, not a real person’s case. The people, the dates and the amounts are made up. The way the record is built is not — that part is how these disputes actually run.
Renting · raised against the account holder
A withheld deposit, from the landlord's side
The question this answers
“What evidence do I need to keep part of a tenant’s deposit?”
One side had photographs of the same six rooms at move-in and at move-out, taken from the same spots twenty-one months apart. The other side had a recollection. That difference is the whole case.
The situation
Ray owns two rental units. A tenant of two years moved out in March. The deposit was $2,000; Ray returned $550 and kept $1,450 — $1,180 for carpet in two rooms and $270 for repainting.
Three weeks later the tenant filed a claim saying the carpet was normal wear and the paint was never discussed. Ray had to show what the place looked like when they moved in, and what it looked like when they left.
Which way round
This one is being raised against Ray, not by him. Most documentation advice assumes you’re the one complaining — but the person answering a claim is usually the one with less written down, because until the claim arrives there was nothing to answer.
A landlord, a contractor and a tenant all keep the same kind of record. What changes is who is answering whom — and in a record, that’s a label, not a different set of facts.
The record — 10 items over 21 months
as it sits in the register
Item
Their side — the tenant
Your side — Ray
June 2024
001 Jun 2
Your side — Ray
Move-in condition photos
24 photos · six rooms · phone timestamps kept
002 Jun 2
Your side — Ray
Move-in checklist, signed by both
Scan · carpet marked “good, minor mark by door”
November 2024
003 Nov 14
Their side — the tenant
Text from the tenant
“carpet in the back room got a bit wet from the window, all dried out now, no dramas”
004 Nov 14
Your side — Ray
Reply offering to send someone out
Text · no reply recorded
Nothing logged for 16 months — Nov 2024 to Mar 2026
March–April 2026
005 Mar 8
Your side — Ray
Move-out photos — same six rooms
26 photos · same angles as item 001
006–007 Mar 12
Your side — Ray
Two quotes — carpet $1,180, painter $270
PDFs from the trades, both dated
008 Mar 15
Your side — Ray
Itemized deposit statement sent
Email · $550 returned, $1,450 itemized
009 Mar 29
Their side — the tenant
Claim filed
Normal wear and tear · full $1,450 sought
010 Apr 2
Your side — Ray
Response — photo pairs, room by room
Built from the record · item 003 attached
What three of those entries actually did
Most items in a record do nothing on their own. These three carried it.
001 + 005
The pair, not the photo
Neither set proves anything alone. Same rooms, same spots, twenty-one months apart, and the difference between them is visible without anyone explaining it. A photo is an opinion; a pair is a measurement.
003
Their own words, dated
A text from the tenant, sixteen months before anyone was arguing, saying the carpet got wet. Nothing Ray could write would carry what that one message carries — and he only had it because he kept it when it didn’t matter.
004
The offer nobody took up
An offer to send someone out, made the same day, with no reply recorded. It came to nothing at the time, which is exactly why it was almost not written down.
What was missing
Three gaps. None of them sank it, and all of them were avoidable.
01
The painter’s quote didn’t say which wall
It said “living room”. The photos showed marks on two walls and clean paint on the other two. A quote that doesn’t match what the photographs show is an invitation to argue about the $270.
02
Sixteen months with nothing in it
Two inspections happened in that window. Neither was recorded, so the record can’t say whether the carpet was deteriorating or fine until the last month. A silence is a question you’ll be asked to explain.
03
No record of a final walkthrough being offered
Ray says he offered one on the phone. There’s nothing showing it was offered, taken up, or declined — and a phone call nobody wrote down is the single most common hole in a record like this.
How it ended
Settled before it got to a hearing. The $1,180 for the carpet stayed with Ray; the $270 for paint went back to the tenant.
The paint was the one item the record couldn’t pin down. Everything the photographs and the tenant’s own message covered held; the thing that rested on Ray’s memory did not. That is the pattern in almost every one of these.
What to take from it — either side of this dispute
Photograph the same rooms from the same spots, at the start and at the end. The pair is the evidence. Either side can do this, and the tenant who does it is just as protected.
Keep what the other side sends you, especially when it’s friendly and nothing is wrong. Those are the messages that turn out to matter.
Write down the offer, even when nothing comes of it. “I offered, they didn’t take it up” is only true if it was recorded at the time.
A phone call that isn’t written down didn’t happen, as far as any record is concerned. Two lines afterwards is enough.
Worked example · no real person’s case · no statute cited · education on documenting, not legal advice Case 004 · published 2026-09-12 · reviewed 2026-09-12