Step 1: Give notice of your intent not to renew your lease and forwarding address

Before you move out, you should provide written notice of your intent not to renew your lease. Check your lease to determine how many days in advance you must provide notice. Many leases, such as the Texas Apartment Association lease, require at least thirty days. Keep a copy of this notice.

You should also give the landlord a written notice with your forwarding address as soon as you know what it is. It can be in the same notice as your intent not to renew or it can be done separately at a later time. A landlord must be given a forwarding address before you are entitled to get back a security deposit. It is never too late to do this.

Tip: The forwarding address can be any place that you can be sent mail. It can be a friend or relative for example. If you are moving out of town, it is best to leave a local forwarding address. If the landlord thinks you are leaving town, it might be more inclined to keep your deposit.

Step 2: Do a walk through and take pictures

Be sure to clean all rooms out when you leave. Clean the bathrooms, kitchen, and appliances. In addition, you should clean the walls and floors if you left any serious marks. By law, you are not responsible for damage caused by normal wear and tear, but the better condition you leave the rental unit in, the less likely the landlord will deduct maintenance and repair expenses from your security deposit.

Shortly before you move out, consider doing a walk through of the rental unit with your landlord. (If you cannot get your landlord to come with you, get a witness to do a walk through with you.) Ask the landlord about the damage for which it intends to charge you. Keep in mind that you do have the right to try to fix anything yourself that you feel you should. This could reduce or eliminate the deduction. It is best to discuss this with your landlord first and get their written agreement that they will not charge you if you address the problem.

Take pictures of the rental unit to document the condition in which you left it. Sometimes landlords claim you "trashed out" a unit, when in fact you may have left one sock on the floor. Rather than worry about who is telling the truth, get some proof. (Some tenants even take the pictures with the front page of that day's newspaper to prove the pictures were taken when the tenant moved out as opposed to when the tenant moved in.) By the way, photos are easy to show other people (and judges). Videos are hard to store, move and show.

Also, don't forget to return your keys to the landlord when you move out.

Step 3: Wait 30 days

Within thirty days of moving out and providing written notice of your forwarding address, the landlord is required to return your security deposit. If you do not receive your security deposit in full, the landlord is required to provide you with an itemized list of deductions the landlord took from the deposit. For example, the landlord can deduct for things you, occupants and guests caused beyond normal wear and tear such as patching up large holes you knocked in the wall.

The landlord cannot charge for damage not caused by you, occupants and guests, or damage from normal wear and tear. For example, replacing carpet just because it is worn, repainting cracked or old walls, replacing old appliances or old light fixtures. The landlord also cannot charge for things already present when you moved in.

Step 4: Send a demand letter

If you waited thirty days from the date you moved out and provided a forwarding address, but you still have not recovered your security deposit (or an itemized list of deductions) you might write a demand letter asking for the return of your security deposit. It is always better to avoid the courthouse if you can because the courts can be slow, expensive and unpredictable.

In the letter, include your forwarding address again and suggest that you will seek legal remedies if the landlord does not refund your security deposit. You might also demand that the landlord show proof of any work done to the apartment unit including pictures, receipts and work orders.

You might wait ten days to see if the landlord responds. If you do not receive a response or you think the response is unreasonable, you ought to file a lawsuit in justice court (also called Justice of the Peace or JP court) to try to recover your security deposit. It is easy to do, and the best way to get action.

Common Question: If your landlord gives you some of your deposit back using a check, but wrongfully makes some deductions, do you cash the check? The answer is unclear. There is some risk if you cash it because the landlord will claim that you agreed with the amount refunded; however, there are some case decisions in Texas which say cashing the check does not prevent you from suing for the rest. If you want to cash the landlord's check and take the risk, at least mark through any language on the check which says "Final settlement of deposit" or anything else like that, and put in its place "Partial refund, all rights reserved." Then sue the landlord for the amount improperly withheld, plus penalties and costs. If the landlord is found to have withheld some amount in bad faith, the landlordd cannot take any deductions from the deposit at all, and you are entitled to three times the amount of the deposit.

Continue on to filing a lawsuit...