You are splitting hairs trying to get out of paying what you owe. It doesn't matter that they listed the charge in the wrong place on the accounting; what matters is that you owe the money.
If you don't pay, you will be sued. If you can't afford to pay the balance in full, call them & make payment arrangements. It's that simple
Do you have the paper you signed or a copy of it? Otherwise your kinda sol. Even then it is probably more trouble then its worth.
Do you still have a copy of the paper you signed when you did the move-out inspection with the maintenance man? Hopefully so! Check to see if anywhere on there it says that everything was fine, or no charges for cleaning, etc... Any helpful information. If you don't have it, call the building manager and ask for a copy.
Worst case scenario, I'd call back the manager and explain the walk through you did with the maintenance man, and explain that you signed something and he said there would be no further charges. Check your original lease as well, to see if anything in there requires you to pay for cleaning after you move out. You can also request to have the maintenance man present and have him talk with you and the manager if you'd like, to help clear it up.
The main question now is, was there a lot of carpet ruin due to the dog? If so, they might have noticed it after you had gone through it with the maintenance man and, if you didn't sign anything saying the walk-through was finished and everything was fine, they can charge you for it.
You can always dispute it and refuse the charge, and just work with your credit companies regarding the situation, but I really don't recommend that route. Unfortunately, this happens A LOT with apartment complexes.
I moved out of an apartment back in late May (Lease was up June 6th), just received my final bill and there was a charge of $447 of cleaning charges, with move out comment "carpet damage due to pet".
Note, I did perform a move-out inspection with their head of maintenance guy on May 23rd, he said everything look great and I won't be charged anything, and that's when I signed the paper that I handed the keys back to them. At the time, I asked them if there was a move-out inspection sheet and they said there was none.
However, on this bill, where they attached the move-out inspection form, it is dated June 6, 2014, and inspection was performed by this manager chick. I called her today to ask about how one can spend almost 500 dollars on cleaning a 600 sq ft apartment (carpeted area roughly 500sq ft, maybe even less). And she said according to her records, that charge is from them replacing the unit with brand new carpet because there was excessive dog urine, she did pro-rated me for whatever life is left of that carpet.
Now the question is, on the bill they sent me, there is clearly a column that says "damages/replacements" and another that says "carpet". If they were to replace the carpet, shouldn't the charge be under that, instead of "cleaning charges"? And am I legally responsible to pay for that charge, as far as I am concern, they could've charged me for cleaning but installed brand new everything into the unit.
