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The average LA renter loses $900 when they move out. This tool tells you what you're likely to get back, and what cleaning actually moves the needle.
California has some of the strongest tenant protections in the country — AB 2801, passed in 2024, limits landlords to charging only what's "reasonably necessary" for cleaning and requires photos and itemized receipts for every deduction over $125. Despite that, LA renters still lose an average of 38% of their deposit every move.
The single biggest controllable factor is the cleaning condition you leave the unit in. We see this every week — tenants who pay $300-$500 for a professional move-out clean recover $800-$1,400 more of their deposit than tenants who DIY or skip it entirely. This estimator shows you the math.
Enter your deposit amount, apartment size, and honest condition. We'll estimate what you're likely to recover without a clean, what you'd recover with one, and whether the math works out in your favor. (Spoiler: for 90% of LA renters, it does.)
Under AB 12, California deposits are capped at 1 month's rent for most landlords (2 months for small landlords).
Based on 500+ LA move-outs we've helped clean.
The baseline recovery rates (97% for spotless down to 18% for trashed) come from our own records — over 500 LA move-outs since 2020 where the tenant shared their final itemized statement with us after the fact. We tracked condition at cleaning time vs. final deposit returned and regressed the two.
Pet adjustments (-5%), smoker adjustments (-12%), and long tenancy bonuses (+4-7%) come from the same dataset. California Civil Code 1950.5 explicitly prohibits charging tenants for "ordinary wear and tear," and judges interpret longer tenancies as entitled to more wear — landlords who overcharge long-term tenants lose small-claims cases more often.
The "with clean" recovery assumes a professional deep move-out clean that hits every line on our move-out checklist: inside appliances, baseboards, window tracks, cabinet interiors, and carpet shampoo. That's the combination that consistently gets the full cleaning deduction reversed.
This tool is an estimate, not legal advice. For disputes, check the LA Housing Department's tenant resources or consult a California tenant's rights attorney.
Book a move-out clean before your walk-through. Same-week availability across LA.