The deposit return letter is the last document of a tenancy and the first exhibit of a dispute. Below are the two letters you'll actually send, the easy one, where everything comes back, and the itemized one, where deductions have to be defended line by line. Copy either, fill the brackets, attach your evidence.
This is not legal advice, and deposit law is intensely state-specific. The return deadline, whether interest accrues, and what the itemization must include all vary by state and sometimes by city, and missing the timeline can forfeit your right to keep any of it. Read your state's statute (or ask a local attorney), then use these letters as the structure.
Letter 1, returning the full deposit
Use this one whenever you can. A clean full return, sent fast and in writing, closes the tenancy with a record that you handled the money properly, which is exactly the reputation you want preceding you into the next dispute that does happen.
Letter 1, full return
Letter 2, itemized deductions
This is the letter that gets tested in small claims, and it wins or loses on the line items. Not “cleaning and damage, $600”, each deduction gets its own line with a specific description, a specific dollar amount, and a receipt or estimate behind it. Vague itemizations read as improvised; specific ones read as records.
Letter 2, itemized deductions
What to attach before you mail it
- Receipts or estimates for every deduction line , an invoice for the repair, a contractor's estimate if the work isn't done yet, the final utility statement.
- Move-in and move-out records. The condition evidence from both ends of the tenancy is what turns “beyond normal wear” from your opinion into a documented change.
- Proof of mailing. Send it to the forwarding address (or the last known address if you have none), keep the receipt, and note the date, the deadline is measured to this.
The deeper documentation habit, what to record at move-in, at move-out, and every time money moves, is its own guide: the security deposit paper trail. The letter is just the visible end of that trail.
The mistakes that turn letters into lawsuits
Three patterns lose deposit disputes over and over: missing the state deadline, deducting for ordinary aging, and round-number itemizations with nothing behind them. All three are records problems, not judgment problems, and that's the part you can systematize. rents.ai tracks each deposit from held to returned with itemized deductions, description, amount, date , attached to the tenant's record alongside the documents. It doesn't know your state's deadline and it won't give you legal coverage; what it gives you is the structured, dated, itemized record any version of your state's rules will ask you to produce.