Landlord suddenly hires a property management company to handle damage deposit?

I'm a landlord myself so I know how damage deposits work. Itemization, depreciation, normal wear and tear, etc. We also are tenants and we just moved out of a two bedroom condo. We were shocked to hear from our landlord that his new property management company, whom he just hired after we left, will determine what damages were caused and what needs cleaning further. This worries us because we have the feeling that he wants us to pay for the damages for his past drug dealing tenants.

We rented the unit two years ago, sight unseen because housing in the resort town where my husband was going to be working is very hard to come by. Of course the unit was nothing like the LL showed in his pictures. We showed up at 6am with a moving truck and were appalled at the filth. I called the LL and told him that whoever he paid to clean definitely didn't clean anything. He told us that we needed to call the management, we did, they denied it, and so we just cleaned. Not a big deal, but it was truly filthy. Clumps of hair in the drains, filthy floor molding, scratched up linoleum, dog chewed molding, punctured screens, etc.

LL was out of state and therefore no one was available to do a walk-through. I took pictures, made a list of what wasn't clean and also made a list of damages prior to our move-in. During our tenancy I sent quite a few emails stating that one of the bathrooms smelled like a dog urinated it in. There were scratches gouging the floor, chewed up baseboards and a strong odor. With that email I brought up some of the damage that we believe was created by tenants previous dog. He didn't believe they had a dog, but they definitely did. I also mentioned that the sliding screen door had holes in it, again probably from a dog. I mentioned that I wanted him to know that our dog did not cause the damage. He is an outdoor cold-weather dog. He was nowhere near the damage.

I also complained that none of the windows would shut properly. They were all contorted when we tried to close them. We asked maintenance of the association to come shut them properly and they did, but still huge drafts. In both bathrooms we caused the towel racks to fall down. The first rack was a couple of months into tenancy. The other was just last month. The towel racks were screwed into just sheetrock using wood screws. They were not screwed into a stud. This left just screw holes in one bathroom, but the other caused good sized holes, however the previous tenant spackled something, so I think he had trouble as well. Our argument is that the towel racks weren't fastened properly before we got in there. We were as careful as we could be, but finally they failed.

The only damage that we caused was a fist sized dent in the wall (broke the sheetrock a tiny bit) from taking the ironing board out of the closet. My husband filled it in and spackled it.

As for cleaning and wear and tear. UT state law only allows landlords to charge cleaning for "excessive filth". We had about three light stains on the carpet. Before signing the lease the LL said that he was painting the unit and installing new carpets. We got there and of course he decided to just get the carpets cleaned for us. That's fine by us, but we don't want to pay to replace or clean 10 year old carpets. I understand cleaning, but the carpets were very warn already.

The last issue that we had was our new downstairs neighbors. I complained twice by email to both him and management that they constantly smoked. The smell seeped into our unit about 6 hours a day. They never stopped. I'd open the windows and they'd smoke on their deck, blew right in. We closed the windows and it seeped in as well. I let him know that I am very, very sensitive to smoke. I told him in an email that my throat was raw and I had nasal drip for two months. I asked him to look into it, and finally I called the management myself. They stopped them from smoking on the deck but that didn't help. I suggested LL go through HOA, find out if the units were all non-smoking, etc. He didn't care to check until I made it clear to him that his unit will never rent out to non-smokers unless he fixes the problem. Of course a day after we move out they gave the neighbors notice to quit or leave. I lived with it because we had already given him 2 months notice we were moving out.

We intend to contest anything beyond the one dent in the wall that we caused, and anything above normal wear and tear. If we need to go to small claims we will. I assume that his new management company would represent him? We would ask for move-out report for his previous tenants. I have pictures, but they are cell phone pics and not that clear. Any advice? $1,200 is a lot for us.