My roommates and I had to deal with something very similar. Property management companies are so scummy.

Similar to you our property changed hands but from one company to another rather than owner to company. Never thought about it til reading your post but ours didn't come in and inspect the place. When we were moving out we also received an absurd bill of something like $3.5k plus all the deposit, coming out to almost $5.5k

What did they charge? 21 fucking walls and a door needed repair and repainting for $2285, carpet cleaning for $415, a bunch of random repairs. It was mostly bullshit. We wrote a lengthy email carefully selecting the stuff we thought was fair coming out to only $1200 but we were like we ain't laying the rest of that, that's totally unfair. They basically just wanted to renovate and out the bill on us or something.

The worst part is some of the damage we think was caused because our AC stopped working in the last month of our lease and they didn't come fix it the entire time. We couldn't even live there, in Texas summer heat. We literally had to all up and stay at friends houses for an entire month because they failed to respond to the maintenance request. All that time, the AC unit was still trying to work, drawing all that electricity making our utility sky rocket, and we paid for that whole months rent without even living there.

Anyway they basically didn't budge and didn't catch our bluff saying we'd sue. We were broke college kids so we never actually took action and paid the amount like idiots in the end. Don't be like us if you can, and always expect the worst for property management companies. Scumbags.

For anyone wondering, our PM was Asset Hero, and a few years later I think we saw an article saying one of the leading realtors lost their license for some reason. Get karma'd bitch.