How to Process a Deposit Claim in Florida

Our topic on today’s blog is how to process a deposit claim in Florida. When your tenants move out, you might find that things are not the way you think they should be. If this is the case, you may want to make a claim against the security deposit your tenants paid. What you might find helpful is to check out our previous blog on what you can and cannot charge the deposit for. Check out that link below.

According to the Florida statutes, there are three really important things to remember when you are making a deposit claim.

Timeframe:

Florida law establishes a timeframe for security deposits. If your tenants move out and the place looks good, you need to return their full security deposit within 15 days. If you’re going to make a claim against the deposit, you have a little extra time. In that case, you’ll have 30 days from the day they moved out to return the balance of their funds and notify them of the claim you’ve made on the rest of the deposit. Don’t miss that 30 day window. 31 days is too long.

Language:

Florida law establishes specific language that must be included when a claim is made against a tenant’s security deposit. At Hoffman Realty, we use a form that our attorneys provided us.

Address:

When you make a claim, you must send it to the tenant’s last known address. You must also send it by Certified Mail. If it’s not sent by Certified Mail to their last known address, you do not have a valid claim. If the tenants gave you a forwarding address, that’s the one you should use. If you do not have a forwarding address, send it to the rental property where they were living. That is their last known address. We like to send the claim to both the forwarding address and the rental property, just to cover all of our bases.

If you do not pay attention to these three things, you do not have a legal deposit claim in the state of Florida. contact us or give us a call at (813) 875-7474.