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You handed over the keys. He said the money would come "in a few days", and that was a while ago. Now the calls go unanswered, or you get a number you were never shown the working for. This page is what to do about it, in order — and what it actually costs, which is almost certainly not what you think.
The reason most people give up is a piece of arithmetic they have done wrong. They compare their deposit with what an advocate charges — one tenant we read was quoted ₹10,000 just to send one letter — and conclude the remedy costs more than the loss. A formal demand notice is not that number. It is ₹299.
Cheapest first. Most deposit disputes end somewhere in the first three, and the people who get to the fourth are usually the ones who skipped the first three.
Ask once, in writing, with a date on it
Send one message — email, or WhatsApp you can export — that says the amount, the day you handed over the keys, and the date you want it back by. Most people have only ever asked on the phone. A dated written request costs nothing, and it is the thing that later fixes when the refund fell due.
Make him itemise any deduction
If he says he is keeping some of it for damages, ask for the list and the bills, in writing. He may lawfully deduct rent you owe and damage beyond normal wear and tear — he may not keep a round number because the flat needed painting. An unitemised deduction is the weakest thing a landlord can put in writing, and asking for the itemisation is how you get it.
Send a formal demand notice
This is the step that changes the conversation, because it is the first one that is not between two people any more. It states the deposit, the handover, the amount withheld and a deadline to refund, and it goes by Registered Post with acknowledgement so there is a record he received it. It is also the cheapest step in the whole sequence.
Take it to the forum that governs your tenancy
If the deadline in your notice passes with nothing, the next step is a claim — before the rent authority or rent court where your state's tenancy law provides one, or as a civil recovery claim. Which forum yours belongs to depends on the state and the tenancy, so this is the point to spend an hour with an advocate rather than guess.
Do not let it go quiet
Suit to recover a security deposit must generally be filed within 3 years. Nothing about a deposit gets easier with time: memories of the flat's condition fade, the landlord re-lets it, and the paperwork you did not keep becomes the paperwork you cannot get. If you are going to act, the cheapest day to act is today.
Unlike a bounced cheque, a deposit claim has no short fuse that closes the door in a month. It has a state deadline that tells you when he went into default, and an outer limit that eventually ends it.
Landlord must refund the security deposit within 15 days of termination/handover
Counted from termination and handover of possession — the day you gave the keys back, not the day the agreement said the tenancy ended. Past it, he is not slow; he is in default, and your written demand can say so. Other states set their own period, so if your tenancy is elsewhere, treat this as the shape of the rule and not as your number.
Section 11, Tamil Nadu Regulation of Rights and Responsibilities of Landlords and Tenants Act, 2017 (TNRRLTA)
The law gives you a window, not a wall. Here is what it actually says — never a date, because only you know when the refund fell due, and never a verdict on your case, because that is a lawyer's judgment, not this page's.
Suit to recover a security deposit must generally be filed within 3 years
Counted from: the day the refund fell due
If you think you're already past it: An old date does not end a deposit claim on its own — a written acknowledgement of what is owed, or a part-payment, restarts the clock. If it is close or already passed, see a lawyer this week rather than writing it off.
Limitation Act, 1963 — Schedule, Part I
This is the outer limit, not a deadline to plan around — it is the reason the answer to "should I leave it a bit longer" is no.
A spoken promise restarts nothing. "After the next tenant moves in", "once my son is back", "end of the month" — none of it changes when the refund fell due. Getting him to put what he owes in writing is a different thing entirely, and worth asking for.
These are the same things we ask a customer for, and the same things an advocate would ask for first. Missing one is not a reason to stop — each has a fallback.
The rental agreement showing the deposit
It proves how much you paid and on what terms it comes back. This is the whole claim in one document.
Don't have it? No agreement? The transfer itself plus any message agreeing the amount can stand in — add both.
Proof you actually paid the deposit
The landlord's easiest answer is that the amount was different, or never paid. A bank or UPI record ends that.
Don't have it? A receipt, a bank line, or a message acknowledging the amount all work.
Evidence of the condition when you left
Deposit disputes are argued over damage. Dated photographs and meter readings taken at handover settle it.
Don't have it? If you did not photograph it, a handover note, the final meter reading, or a witness's account still helps.
The messages where you asked for it back
They fix the date the refund fell due, which is where the limitation clock starts.
Don't have it? One dated message asking for the refund is enough.
None of these are legal traps. They are the ordinary, reasonable-seeming choices that leave you with no record when you finally need one.
Only ever asking on the phone
Six months of calls and 'next week' leaves you with nothing to show anybody. One dated written request changes that, and it is the single cheapest thing on this page.
Accepting a deduction you were never shown
'I'm keeping ₹20,000 for damages' is not a deduction, it is a number. Ask for the itemised list and the bills in writing. If he refuses to put it in writing, that refusal is itself worth keeping.
Taking a part payment without saying what it is
Refusing part of your own money helps nobody. Take it — but reply in writing that you accept it towards the deposit and that the balance is still owed. Silence when a part payment lands is what later gets called a settlement.
Leaving without photographing the flat
Deposit fights are argued over the condition of the premises, and the person who took dated photographs at handover wins the argument. If you have already gone without them, the handover note, the final meter reading, or a witness who was there still helps.
Deciding it is too small to bother with
This is the one the corpus is full of, and it is usually a judgement made against the cost of a lawyer rather than against the cost of a notice. Those are not the same number — see the arithmetic below.
One tenant put the whole problem in a sentence: "The real problem is that you can't practically do anything — hiring a lawyer costs more and takes more time than the security deposit itself." That is true of a lawyer and a court case. It is not true of the first step.
Do the arithmetic on the real numbers. The withheld deposits people describe run ₹49,000 · ₹72,000 · ₹1,00,000 · ₹2,00,000 · ₹2,84,000 · ₹6,00,000. A formal demand notice from us is ₹299, or ₹799 with the posting and the proof of delivery done for you. Against the smallest of those amounts that is a rounding error, and against the largest it is not worth thinking about.
And a notice is not a guarantee. A landlord who has spent your deposit and has nothing will still have nothing after receiving one. What it reliably does is convert a private argument into a dated, formal demand he cannot say he never received — which is both the thing that makes most people pay, and the thing every later step needs you to have done.
| Route | Cost | Time | What it gets you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calling and messaging him yourself | Free | Months, in most of the accounts we have read | Sometimes it works. If it was going to, it usually already has. Nothing about it creates a record, so you arrive at every later step with no more than you started with. |
| A formal demand notice | ₹299 to draft and post yourself · ₹799 if we print it, post it by Registered Post with acknowledgement and send you the tracking | Same day to draft; delivery in days | A dated, formal demand on the record, in your name, with proof he received it. It is the step that makes most of these end, and it is the one you can take from another city. |
| An advocate sending the same letter | One tenant in our research was quoted ₹10,000 for exactly this | Days, depending on their diary | The same document with a professional behind it. Worth it when the amount is large or the facts are genuinely contested — see the last section. |
| A claim before the forum, if he still ignores you | Advocate fees over a longer engagement | Long, and everybody in this situation says so | The route with teeth. It exists and it is used — and most people who look at it honestly would rather have been refunded at the notice stage. |
Chennai is the outlier and every tenant here knows it. The most-discussed local housing complaint we found was a tenant asking, in capitals, why every single place wanted eight to ten months' rent as deposit. Elsewhere in India two or three months is the norm; here people routinely hand over the better part of a year's rent before they have unpacked.
That changes this page's arithmetic completely. On a ₹25,000 flat, a Chennai deposit is not ₹50,000 — it is closer to ₹2 lakh, and sometimes past it. It is the largest single sum most renting families in this city hand to anybody, and it is being withheld by a person who is counting on the recovery being more trouble than it is worth.
Tamil Nadu's tenancy law is on your side about the timing: landlord must refund the security deposit within 15 days of termination/handover. A tenancy registered with the Rent Authority makes the terms harder to argue about afterwards — worth knowing for the next place, and worth reading now if you are moving on.
Renting somewhere else in Chennai next? Local rents, deposits and stamp duty:
Three ways this ends, and each has a next step. This is the same plan we build for somebody who has bought the notice — the difference is that theirs is dated, because they have told us when they handed over the keys.
If they do what the notice asks
Confirm in writing that the deposit is settled in full, so no deduction can be raised against you afterwards.
No Claim / No Dues Certificate →If they reply, or offer to settle
If the landlord claims deductions, ask for them itemised with bills. Agreeing a reduced figure in writing is usually faster and cheaper than arguing the whole deposit.
Tenant-Landlord Settlement Agreement →If they ignore you
Keep the handover evidence — photographs, meter readings, the handover note — together with the proof of service. A deposit claim turns on the condition of the premises when you left.
Why there are no dates above. They fill in the moment you tell us the day you handed over possession — that one date sets the rest. We would rather leave them blank than print a day that is not yours.
There was no written rental agreement. Do I still have a case?
Yes. This is the belief that stops more people than any landlord does. A deposit you can prove you paid is a debt whether or not anybody signed anything — the bank transfer or UPI record, the rent you paid every month, and the messages agreeing the amount are all evidence. What you lose without an agreement is the written terms, not the claim. Send the notice on what you have.
He says he is deducting for damages. Can he do that?
He can deduct rent you actually owe and damage beyond normal wear and tear. He cannot keep the deposit for ordinary wear, for repainting a flat you lived in for years, or for a figure he will not itemise. Ask for the deductions in writing, item by item, with bills — a demand that pre-empts an unitemised deduction is much harder to ignore than one that does not mention it.
I have already moved to another city. Can I still do anything?
This is the most common version of the problem in our research, and it is the one a notice is best suited to. You do not have to travel, appear anywhere, or meet him. The notice goes by post from wherever you are, and the acknowledgement comes back as proof he received it — which is the whole reason the send-it-for-you option exists.
Is it worth it for a deposit of ₹50,000?
Judge it against the cost of the first step, not against the cost of a court case. The deposits people describe run from ₹49,000 to ₹6,00,000, and a formal notice costs a fraction of one month's rent. What a notice cannot do is get money out of somebody who has none — but it puts a dated demand on the record, which keeps every later option open. Doing nothing is the only outcome here that is certain.
He gave part of it back. Does taking it weaken my position?
Not if you say what it is. Accept it in writing as a part payment towards the deposit and state that the balance remains due. What causes trouble is taking a part payment in silence and arguing about the rest months later, because by then he will describe it as the agreed settlement.
You can write it yourself — everything above is what a correct one has to say. If you would rather not, we build it from your deposit amount, your handover date and your evidence, serve-ready, in your own name: ₹299 to download and post yourself, or ₹799 and we print it, post it by Registered Post with acknowledgement, and email you the tracking — which is the option that exists for everyone who has already moved away.
You see the full draft before you pay anything. We are a document service, not a law firm.
We would rather say this than sell you the wrong thing. Take proper advice if:
For the ordinary case — you paid it, you handed the keys back, he will not return it — the first step is the same one an advocate would start with, and you can take it today.
Agreements.co.in provides legal information, not legal advice. This guide describes general procedure and is not a substitute for an advocate advising on your own documents, your own tenancy and your own dates. Nothing here should be relied on to decide whether a right of yours has expired — if that is a live question, take advice rather than a guess.