If I gave a prospective landlord money to hold an apartment and decided not to move in. Can she keep all the money if I notified her in 4 business days that I changed my mind?

Can you consult a copy of a lease or rental agreement that you signed, if any? Or was your transaction a verbal agreement only?

Have you tried to find out about tenant-landlord law in your state?

Perhaps you could type in "tenant," "landlord," "law," "hold," "deposit," "cancel before occupying," "return," "notification," or some combination of these and see what you come up with. Oh, yes, type in the name of your state also.

If I gave a prospective landlord money to hold an apartment and decided not to move in. Can she keep all the money if I notified her in 4 business days that I changed my mind?


In 99% of the cases yes, she can keep your money. You can always take her to Small Claims Court but you won't necessarily win.

She will claim she had to spend more money to rent the apartment, turned down prospective renters during those 4 days, you owe her the money.

Unless you have a receipt that indicates you have the right to change your mind within a certain time - and this is not an in-house purchase which people sometimes think, no cooling off period - she keeps the deposit (as I said).