Austin move-out cleaning and Texas deposit rules: what to clean first

Texas gives your landlord until the 30th day after you surrender the unit to refund your deposit or send an itemized list of deductions, and neither is due until you’ve given a forwarding address in writing. Cleaning can be deducted only as a charge you’re legally liable for under your lease — never for normal wear and tear.

What Chapter 92 says, section by section

The rules sit in Subchapter C of Chapter 92 of the Texas Property Code, which covers all residential leases (§92.101). We’re cleaners, not lawyers, so here is the statute summarized in good faith, section by section — general information, not legal advice.

• §92.103(a): the 30-day line. The landlord must refund the deposit on or before the 30th day after you surrender the premises. Anything kept has to come with a written description and itemized list of all deductions (§92.104(c); the one exception is undisputed unpaid rent), and a refund or accounting mailed and postmarked by the deadline is presumed on time (§92.1041).
• §92.107: the forwarding-address trigger. Neither the refund nor the list is owed until you give the landlord a written statement of your forwarding address. Failing to give one doesn’t by itself forfeit the refund (§92.107(b)); it means nothing has to arrive yet.
• §92.104(b) and §92.001: no charge for wear and tear. No portion of the deposit may be kept for normal wear and tear: “deterioration that results from the intended use of a dwelling,” and expressly not deterioration from “negligence, carelessness, accident, or abuse.”
• §92.103(b): the bold-print rule. A lease clause that makes advance notice of move-out a condition of the refund is effective only if it’s underlined or in conspicuous bold print. The Texas Attorney General’s Renter’s Rights page notes that many leases require a 30-day notice.
• §92.108: last month’s rent is still rent. You may not withhold any of it on the grounds that the deposit is security for unpaid rent; a tenant who does is presumed to have acted in bad faith.
• §92.109: the landlord’s side. Keeping a deposit in bad faith carries statutory penalties plus the tenant’s reasonable attorney’s fees. Missing the 30-day deadline for the refund or the itemized list is presumed bad faith, and in a tenant’s suit the landlord must prove the retention was reasonable.

So the outcome runs on paper and dates: the day you surrender the unit, the day your forwarding address arrives in writing, and a list that has to itemize each deduction. The clean decides only how much there is to itemize.

Where a cleaning charge fits, and where it can’t

Subchapter C never uses the word “cleaning.” A cleaning charge rides on §92.104(a), which allows deductions for “damages and charges for which the tenant is legally liable under the lease or as a result of breaching the lease.” The lease supplies the cleaning standard; the wear-and-tear definition sets its limit.

A clean removes what sits on a surface: grease film, mineral spots, grit in a slider track. It can’t undo what happened to the surface itself — a dulled finish, a chipped edge, carpet worn down by use. The Attorney General’s own example: if carpet is simply more worn because you and your guests walked on it for a year, the landlord may not charge you for a new carpet.

How a cleaning deduction gets argued line by line is the subject of our post on whether a landlord can deduct cleaning costs from your deposit, written for our Miami-Dade market — read its prices and its Florida framing as Miami’s. For a Texas lease, the sections above are the rules.

What to clean first in an Austin unit

Put your time where the dirt is slowest to remove. Our Downtown Austin page names the regional load on tower glass: “Floor-to-ceiling glass takes the brunt of it: limestone dust off the surrounding Edwards country, mineral spotting from a municipal supply drawn out of the Colorado River through Lake Travis and Lake Austin, and pollen carried up through the December-to-February cedar season.” Tower unit or West Lake Hills rental house, the priorities are the same:

1. Glass, faucets and chrome. Mineral spots are slow to lift, so they head the list. If your water comes from Austin Water, its 2025 water quality report puts average total hardness at 93 ppm, about 5.4 grains per gallon — dissolved calcium and magnesium from the erosion of natural deposits. Spots are a film a clean can lift; glass already etched by years of them is past what any clean can undo.
2. Tracks and thresholds. Limestone dust settles where nothing gets wiped day to day — window, slider and closet tracks, the patio threshold — and an empty unit shows every line of it.
3. Sills, blinds and vents in winter. For a December-to-February move-out, add a pass for cedar pollen. The Texas A&M Forest Service notes that very few plants pollinate in winter and cedar is the exception, releasing pollen most readily right after a cold front — so if one blows through before your walkthrough, wipe the sills again.
4. Then everything that opens. Cabinets, drawers, closet shelves, the oven and refrigerator inside: easy to inspect once empty, and only worth cleaning after the last box is out. Floors go last, once everything above them is done.

Leaving a tower downtown or at The Domain? Ask your building how move-outs are scheduled before you book anything else; the clean fits around the move, not inside it.

The order that protects your record

1. Find the notice clause. Check whether advance notice is a condition of the refund and whether that clause is underlined or bold (§92.103(b)), then give the notice it asks for, the way it asks.
2. Clear what the movers won’t take. A clean can’t reach the floor under a sofa that’s staying. Our Austin junk removal page quotes from photos: “Send photos of the pile and you can have a number the same conversation.”
3. Last box out, then the clean. Interiors count only when they’re empty — the whole argument of our post on whether the home needs to be empty before a move-out clean.
4. Photograph the empty unit. Room by room and dated, with the oven and refrigerator open. Beside your move-in photos, that set is your side of any itemized list.
5. Hand over the forwarding address with the keys. In writing — §92.107 asks for “a written statement of the tenant’s forwarding address” — and keep a dated copy. If your lease was signed or renewed on or after September 1, 2025, a managing agent, leasing agent or resident manager can receive Subchapter C’s notices and other communications for the landlord (§92.112), and email works if you have already corresponded with them by email (§92.113).
6. Mark day 30. Count it from the day you surrendered the unit. If neither the deposit nor an itemized list has arrived, the Attorney General’s advice is to contact the landlord first, then consider an attorney or a complaint to the AG’s office.

What we do in Austin, and what we won’t claim

Our Austin move-out cleaning page describes the visit this way: “The empty-unit clean a landlord, a buyer or a property manager will actually sign off on — cabinets and drawers inside, appliance interiors, floors edge to edge, and a photo record you can forward instead of argue about.” The last line of its checklist: “Photo record of the finished unit, emailed as a PDF.”

The limits come in that page’s own words. Asked whether we guarantee your deposit, it answers “No, and nobody honestly can,” and offers this instead: “What we can do is the cleaning standard a walkthrough is graded on, and hand you dated photo proof of the state we left it in.” On carpet: “No. Carpet extraction is a separate trade with separate equipment; we vacuum thoroughly and will tell you plainly if a carpet needs more than that before an inspection.” If your lease sets a carpet standard, read whether move-out cleaning includes carpet cleaning first.

Two limits are ours to add. We can explain Chapter 92, not rule on whether a deduction on your list is lawful; that’s for the Attorney General’s guidance or an attorney. And this post carries no price because our Austin page prints none. Its quote card says “A price in writing before we schedule” and “Nothing due at booking.”

FAQ