Madrid landlord withholds €5,000 deposit and demands €2,000 for painting

€2,000 to paint a 70 m² flat after five years of tenancy

A tenant vacates a 70-square-meter apartment in Madrid after living there for five years. The landlord withholds the €5,000 security deposit and presents a bill for €2,000 for repainting. There was no prior quote, no contractual basis, and the threat of keeping the deposit served as the only guarantee. According to the initial claim, the owner's breakdown covers just one coat of paint. For a property of this size, the cost is four times higher than market rates: painters in Madrid offer quotes starting at €250.

The debate centers on what constitutes normal wear and tear versus damage attributable to the tenant. The owner argues that five years of smoking justify the expense. Most analyses reject this outright: wear from use and time is the landlord's responsibility unless the contract states otherwise. If the contract is silent, painting costs cannot be deducted.

What does the law say about repainting when ending a rental?

The legal reference is case law from the Barcelona Provincial Court (Audiencia Provincial de Barcelona), which in rulings from 2010, 2013, 2015, and 2016 maintained that tenants cannot be required to return the property painted. The criterion is that changing wall colors is part of what the tenant is authorized to do, and there is no legal basis to force them to restore the original state of the walls. Therefore, painting is not automatically compensable damage.

Specific defects are different. Holes from anchors, rings, graffiti, or abnormal dirt can be claimed. The problem is that the boundary between normal use and damage is elastic, and no fixed numbers exist. A judge would have to decide if ten holes for pictures are wear or if fifty-three are something else. This ambiguity allows owners to inflate bills.

Tobacco smell as compensable damage: the landlord's argument

The owner's defense relies on tobacco. Proponents argue that removing the smell from a flat smoked in for five years can easily cost €2,000: washing walls with bleach, applying ozone, using special paint. It is not entirely invented. There are documented cases of flats smelling like ashtrays where the odor persisted for six months despite wallpapering or repainting.

The counterargument is that smoking is legal and daily ventilation eliminates the issue. If the flat smells of tobacco upon entry, the question is whether it is attributable damage or a foreseeable consequence of having a smoking tenant. The answer is not in the law, so these cases often resolve through pressure rather than rights.

The €5,000 deposit: what is legal and what is not

There is a nuance here. A €5,000 deposit is not illegal per se. For contracts signed between June 2013 and March 2019, the Urban Leases Act (LAU) allowed additional guarantees without limit. From March 2019 onwards, the cap is two monthly rents. If the contract predates that date, the amount may be perfectly legal.

However, depositing the bond with the relevant regional body is mandatory. In Madrid, this is IVIMA. If the landlord failed to do so, the tax authority (Hacienda) may intervene. Requesting proof of deposit is a common tactic: when the owner cannot demonstrate it, reclaiming the deposit becomes much easier.

What can the tenant claim and how to apply pressure?

The recurring strategy is hiring a cheap painter independently, informing the landlord, and requesting proof of the deposit. If the owner wants €2,000, they must provide an invoice with VAT. If they don't, the tenant hires the painter. Whoever wants to pay the difference, pays it.

The second front is judicial. For a tenant with moderate income, public defenders are free. The owner, however, would have to pay lawyer and court agent fees, costing at least €2,000. With those figures, the most likely outcome is returning the full deposit before trial. The cost asymmetry favors the tenant.

The third path is fiscal threat. If the rent was undeclared, merely mentioning a report to Hacienda is often enough to get the deposit back intact. It is not elegant, but it works.

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The case ends where these usually do: with the tenant negotiating from a disadvantage and the landlord leveraging information. The shocking figure is not the bill. It is that €5,000 deposits remain legal in old contracts while the current cap is two monthly rents.