Getting your rental deposit back
It sits in an account in your name, and yet you cannot touch it on your own. How it is released, the deadline that works in your favour, and what to do when the landlord stops answering.
Contents
Two or three months' rent tied up for years, and when the time comes to leave, nobody answers. It is one of the most common disputes at the end of a lease. The mechanism is simple, though, and time tends to work for the tenant.
Your money, in a blocked account
Article 257e of the Code of Obligations is clear on a point many people miss: a cash deposit must be placed with a bank, in a savings or deposit account in the tenant's name. The money stays yours, interest included. It is only blocked.
If your deposit is sitting in the managing agency's current account, that does not comply and you can ask for it to be transferred.
Three months' rent at most
For a dwelling, the deposit cannot exceed three months' rent. That is a statutory ceiling, not a custom. Anything demanded above it can be reclaimed.
How it is released
The bank only hands the money over in three situations. None of them depends on your will alone, and none depends on the landlord's will alone either.
- You and the landlord sign the release instruction together. That is the normal route, and the fastest.
- An enforceable court decision settles what happens to the deposit.
- One year has passed without the landlord asserting any claim.
The one-year deadline
This is the most useful part of the arrangement. If, within the year following the end of the lease, the landlord has not legally asserted claims against you, you can require the bank to return the deposit.
In other words, a landlord who merely announces a figure without ever formally pursuing it cannot block the money indefinitely. Note the date your lease ended: that is what starts the clock.
If the landlord stops answering
- Write, do not phone: ask for the deposit to be released by letter and keep a copy.
- Ask for an itemised breakdown of what is being claimed from you.
- Match each item against the check-out report. Anything not in it is open to discussion.
- If the disagreement persists, the tenancy conciliation authority is the normal route, free or low-cost.
Never set your last month's rent off against the deposit on your own initiative. The money is not available, and the unpaid rent remains due.
This information is general and does not replace legal advice suited to your situation.