We rented a vacation house for 1 week through a management company in Santa Barbara. We told them beforehand that we are planning to have a family gathering of about 15 people there for Memorial Day weekend and the management company said that it was fine. We had to give them a security deposit according to the contract. So now they are saying that we are not getting out deposit back because the HOA of the development where we rented the house got a complaint from one of the neighbors that we were having a party there. There was no complaint about noise or anything. Apparently there is a regulation in the development that any sort of parties are prohibited but we were not aware of that and the management company (who we signed contract with) was OK with us having a gathering there. Do they have a right not to give us deposit back? If so, should they give us written explanation and what laws would apply here?

Please help! Thank you so much!

Since the property was in an association, the management company was obligated to make a copy of the rules available to you. The association may be within their legal rights to hold your deposit, however, the management company may be obligated to refund the deposit due to their failure to property inform you of the rules of the association. Read your lease agreement to be sure that it does not provide association rules. If it does not, and nothing is mentioned in the contract stating that you have been given a copy of the rules, then I suggest that you hold the management company accountable for the security deposit.