California security deposit return

No later than 21 calendar days after the tenant has vacated the premises, but not earlier than the time that either the landlord or the tenant provides a notice to terminate the tenancy under Section 1946 or 1946.1, Section 1161 of the Code of Civil Procedure, or not earlier than 60 calendar days prior to the expiration of a fixed-term lease, the landlord shall furnish the tenant, a copy of an itemized statement indicating the basis for, and the amount of, any security received and the disposition of the security, and shall return any remaining portion of the security to the tenant as follows:

The stray comma in "furnish the tenant, a copy" is in the enacted text (an AB 414 drafting artifact); it is reproduced exactly, not a transcription error. The 21-day period and the vacate trigger are long-standing; AB 414 restated the subdivision effective January 1, 2026. The statement may be sent early, but not before a termination notice is given nor more than 60 calendar days before a fixed-term lease expires. Counting follows Code of Civil Procedure §§ 12 and 12a: the vacate date is excluded, day 21 is the deadline, and a deadline landing on a Saturday, Sunday, or California judicial holiday extends to the next court day. No published case squarely applies that roll-forward to this section, so the tool presents it as statutory computation and still recommends acting by the nominal 21st day. California has no postmark-presumption statute for this deadline; whether mailing on day 21 suffices is unsettled, so build in a buffer (practice guidance, not statute). AB 2801 relettered this subdivision effective January 1, 2025; pre-2025 sources cite the old letter, which now designates the photographs subdivision.

(1) The compensation of a landlord for a tenant's default in the payment of rent. (2) The repair of damages to the premises, exclusive of ordinary wear and tear, caused by the tenant or by a guest or licensee of the tenant. (3) The cleaning of the premises upon termination of the tenancy necessary to return the unit to the same level of cleanliness it was in at the inception of the tenancy. The amendments to this paragraph enacted by the act adding this sentence shall apply only to tenancies for which the tenant's right to occupy begins after January 1, 2003. (4) To remedy future defaults by the tenant in any obligation under the rental agreement to restore, replace, or return personal property or appurtenances, exclusive of ordinary wear and tear, if the security deposit is authorized to be applied thereto by the rental agreement.

The four purposes are exclusive: no reletting fees, no automatic make-ready charges. The (b)(4) future-defaults purpose is available only when the signed rental agreement expressly authorizes applying the deposit to it. § 1950.5(e)(1) limits every claim to "only those amounts as are reasonably necessary" for the (b) purposes: no flat fees, no percentages, no padding. The cleaning standard is comparative, not absolute: the unit must be returned to the same level of cleanliness it had at the inception of the tenancy. One point worth stating plainly: § 1950.5 uses "ordinary wear and tear" at least five times and never defines it, and no cross-referenced definition applies. Texas defines the term by statute; California does not, so this tool carries no wear definition and relies on the codified (e)(2) prohibitions plus DRE guidance, clearly labeled as guidance. The damage-versus-wear line is the most litigated issue and the tool never classifies a specific deduction for the user: it quotes the statute and the user decides.

(2) The landlord shall also include, along with and at the same time the itemized statement is sent, copies of documents showing charges incurred and deducted by the landlord to repair or clean the premises, as follows: (A) If the landlord or landlord's employee did the work, the itemized statement shall reasonably describe the work performed. The itemized statement shall include the time spent and the reasonable hourly rate charged. (B) If the landlord or landlord's employee did not do the work, the landlord shall provide the tenant a copy of the bill, invoice, or receipt supplied by the person or entity performing the work. The itemized statement shall provide the tenant with the name, address, and telephone number of the person or entity, if the bill, invoice, or receipt does not include that information. (C) If a deduction is made for materials or supplies, the landlord shall provide a copy of the bill, invoice, or receipt. If a particular material or supply item is purchased by the landlord on an ongoing basis, the landlord may document the cost of the item by providing a copy of a bill, invoice, receipt, vendor price list, or other vendor document that reasonably documents the cost of the item used in the repair or cleaning of the unit. (D) If a deduction is made for repairs or cleanings allowed by this section, the landlord shall provide photographs taken pursuant to subdivision (g), along with a written explanation of the cost of the allowable repairs or cleanings, as described in subparagraphs (A) to (C), inclusive. The landlord may provide such photographs to the tenant by mail, email, computer flash drive, or by providing a link where the tenant may view the photographs online.

The documentation duty covers repair and cleaning charges only; unpaid rent carries no receipt duty and does not count toward the $125 test. Under § 1950.5(h)(4)(A) the package (and the estimate mechanics of (h)(3)) are excused when repair and cleaning deductions together do not exceed $125, but the (h)(1) statement and the 21-day deadline still fully apply. The photo-ATTACHMENT duty in (h)(2)(D) is textually excused at or under $125, while the photo-TAKING duty in subdivision (g) is a different subdivision and still applies; treating the attachment as excused is our reading of the text, unconfirmed by any case or guidance. Either way, a tenant's § 1950.5(h)(5) request revives the full documentation duty, so keep everything.

(1) For tenancies that begin on or after July 1, 2025, the landlord shall take photographs of the unit immediately before, or at the inception of, the tenancy. (2) Beginning April 1, 2025, the landlord shall take photographs of the unit within a reasonable time after the possession of the unit is returned to the landlord, but prior to any repairs or cleanings for which the landlord will make a deduction from or claim against the security deposit pursuant to this section, and shall also take photographs of the unit within a reasonable time after such repairs or cleanings are completed.

Two different date gates: the move-in set keys on the TENANCY START date (on or after 2025-07-01); the move-out and post-repair sets key on the POSSESSION-RETURNED date (on or after 2025-04-01) for all tenancies regardless of when they began. Landlords with pre-July-2025 tenancies were not required to take move-in photos and must not be told they were, but they carry an evidentiary gap since the landlord bears the (m) reasonableness burden. The (g)(2) sequence is enforced: possession, then photographs, and only then repairs or cleaning; work started before the photos draws a hard warning. "Within a reasonable time" is undefined; same-day is our recommended practice, labeled as such. Whether move-out photos are required when no deduction is made is textually ambiguous; the safest behavior, and our reading, is to always prompt for them. No format, count, or timestamp requirements exist. When a repair or cleaning deduction is made and the (h)(2) documentation package applies (repair and cleaning deductions together over $125, or a tenant's (h)(5) request), § 1950.5(h)(2)(D) requires the (g) photographs to be PROVIDED with the statement, deliverable by mail, email, computer flash drive, or an online link. At or under $125 that attachment is textually excused (our reading); the (g) duty to TAKE the photos still applies, and including them anyway is the safest practice. That delivery list for photos is unconditional even though the statement itself may travel by email only on mutual agreement, a statutory mismatch; our conservative default sends photos by the same channel the statement lawfully travels, or prints a link in the mailed statement (our reading).

Subject to paragraphs (5) and (6), if an initial inspection is conducted pursuant to this subdivision and, at the time of inspection, the premises do not contain tenant possessions that prevent the landlord from identifying repairs or cleanings due to the presence of those possessions, the landlord shall not use the security for deductions for repairs or cleanings that are not identified in the itemized statement described in paragraph (2).

The quote above is the (f)(4) deduction bar, the operative constraint on the final letter; it covers repairs and cleanings only, never unpaid rent. The rest of subdivision (f): (f)(1) requires the landlord, within a reasonable time after either party's termination notice or before the end of the lease term, to "notify the tenant in writing of the tenant's option to request an initial inspection and of the tenant's right to be present at the inspection"; the offer is mandatory, the inspection is tenant-optional, and no statutory day count exists for the offer, so the tool never displays a fabricated deadline for it. If requested, the inspection happens "at a reasonable time, but no earlier than two weeks before the termination or the end of lease date" (the statute says "two weeks", not "14 days"); it is silent on whether the tenant's request must be written, so written is not treated as required. If the tenant does not request one, the landlord's duties under the subdivision are discharged; if requested, the landlord proceeds whether or not the tenant is present, unless the request was withdrawn. The landlord must give at least 48 hours' prior written notice of the date and time, waivable only by a written waiver signed by both parties, and the notice must contain the statutory abandoned-property paragraph in substantially the statutory form; which notice must carry that paragraph is textually ambiguous and placing it in the 48-hour notice is our reading. Based on the inspection, (f)(2) requires an itemized statement of proposed repairs and cleanings that must also include the texts of paragraphs (1) to (4) of subdivision (b), given to the tenant if present or left inside the premises; no dollar amounts are required in it, and it is a distinct document from the final (h) statement. (f)(3) gives the tenant the opportunity to cure identified deficiencies before the tenancy ends. The (f)(5) and (f)(6) safe harbors preserve deductions for items listed but not cured, and for anything within the four (b) purposes that arises between the inspection and the return of possession or that possessions concealed during the inspection; the codified (f)(6) is missing a conjunction before "when" and is grammatically defective as printed, so it is reproduced as-is and any paraphrase is our reading. (f)(7): the whole subdivision does not apply when the tenancy is terminated for cause under the cross-referenced provisions of Code of Civil Procedure § 1161(2) to (4).

Except as provided in paragraph (2), (3), or (5), a landlord shall not demand or receive security, however denominated, in an amount or value in excess of an amount equal to one month's rent, in addition to any rent for the first month paid on or before initial occupancy.

The cap became operative July 1, 2024 (AB 12); the current wording is SB 611's, effective January 1, 2025. There are no furnished/unfurnished tiers. "Security" is defined broadly by the (b) chapeau: any payment, fee, deposit, or charge imposed at the start of the tenancy, with only § 1950.6 screening fees excluded, so everything must fit under the cap together. Small-landlord exception, § 1950.5(c)(5)(A): two conjunctive prongs, measured portfolio-wide: (i) the landlord is a natural person or an LLC in which all members are natural persons, and (ii) the landlord owns no more than two residential rental properties that collectively include no more than four dwelling units offered for rent. Under (c)(5)(C), "natural person" includes a settlor or beneficiary of a family trust (a revocable living trust or irrevocable trust whose settlors and beneficiaries are all close relatives). Under (c)(5)(B) the two-month exception never applies to a service member (defined by Mil. & Vet. Code § 400, not the federal SCRA), and a landlord may not refuse to rent to a service member to dodge that limit. Separately, § 1950.5(c)(4) (SB 611, operative April 1, 2025) governs charging a service member a HIGHER-than-standard security based on credit or housing history: it requires a written explanation on or before lease signing and return of the additional amount after no more than six months of residency if rent is current, with the return date stated in the lease. (c)(1) does not list (c)(4) as a cap exception, so our reading is that it operates within the one-month cap; some secondary sources misread it as authorizing above-cap deposits, and the text does not support that. Grandfathering under (c)(6) keys on when the security was demanded or collected, not the move-out date; our conservative reading is that any new post-July-2024 demand pushing the total over the cap triggers the warning. The cap is a demand-side prohibition: an over-cap deposit changes nothing about the return-side machinery, which always runs on the security actually held, and the statute attaches no specific penalty to over-collection. Over-cap is a warning in this tool, never a blocker.

(A) (i) Subject to subparagraph (C), and except as provided by clause (ii), the landlord shall return the remainder of the security by personal delivery or by a check made payable to the tenant and mailed by first-class mail, postage prepaid. (ii) (I) If the landlord received the security or rental payments from the tenant electronically, the landlord shall return the remainder of the security electronically to a bank account or other financial institution designated by the tenant in writing, or by any electronic or virtual method available to the landlord if agreed to in writing by the tenant. Alternatively, the landlord and tenant may, by written agreement, designate another method of return, including, but not limited to, by personal delivery or by a check made payable to the tenant and mailed by first-class mail, postage prepaid, to an address provided by the tenant. Upon the termination of a landlord's interest in the premises and the transfer of the security to the landlord's successor in interest as provided in subdivision (i), the landlord's successor in interest shall return the remainder of the security electronically to a bank account or other financial institution designated by the tenant in writing or by any electronic or virtual method available to the landlord's successor in interest if agreed to in writing by the tenant only if the landlord's successor in interest received rental payments electronically from the tenant.

Default return is personal delivery or a first-class-mail check; the electronic mandate displaces it whenever the landlord ever received the deposit or rent electronically (Zelle, Venmo, ACH, a payment portal), unless a written agreement designates another method. The final sentence extends the mandate to a successor who received rent electronically. Separately, (h)(1)(A)(ii)(II) requires advance WRITTEN notice of the tenant's right to an electronic refund, within a reasonable time after either party's termination notice or before the end of the lease term; that notice is excused if a written return-method agreement exists or the tenancy ended under Code of Civil Procedure § 1161(2) to (4).

The only uses of "interest" in § 1950.5 are in the property-law sense (a landlord's or successor's interest in the premises); the statute requires no interest on the deposit itself. Any deposit interest comes from a city ordinance, so when no covered city applies, the letter does not mention interest. The statute also imposes no escrow or separate-account requirement for the deposit.