I work for a Property Management company in SC and our lease clearly states that the tenant's security deposit is refundable at the end of the lease provided ALL conditions of the Security Deposit agreement (a page in the middle of the lease) have been fulfilled. The first 3 items on the agreement state that 1) The full term of the lease must be fulfilled, 2) the tenant will give a 30 day notice in writing to vacate, and 3)there must be no damages to the unit. The lease goes further to state that if a tenant breaks his or her lease for any reason, the security deposit will be forfeited and the tenant will be responsible for ALL unpaid rent and damages. The forfeited deposit then goes to the owner. We recently had an evicted tenant take us to Magistrate Court where the judge ruled (acc to the particular property manager that went to court) that the security deposit MUST be applied to any damages and if there are no damages, then the deposit MUST be applied to unpaid rent. He went further to state that our lease was in violation of state law. I have been trying to research this and cannot locate anywhere that state law says this. I think what state law says is that the deposit must be refunded and/or applied provided that the terms of the lease were met and there were no damages. Can someone help?

Hello Town:

Couple things. We have a copy of your states landlord tenant law at the top of the real estate page on a sticky note.

The owner/landlord cannot double dip. In other words he can not claim the deposit because the tenant broke the lease, and THEN collect all the unpaid rent. The breakage of the lease by the tenant is NOT an opportunity for the landlord to make a little more money. It COULD be legal if you offered the tenant the same thing. In other words if YOU broke the lease, he'd be able to get BACK rent he already paid you... You can see, of course, how ridiculous THAT sounds... Well, your thing sounds just as ridiculous.

Next is that you need to stop considering the deposit as ONE thing. It's not. It's broken down into dollars.. Therefore, if there are damages to a unit, a landlord may charge ONLY THAT PORTION of the deposit that it took to repair the damage. You'll probably have to supply your vacated tenant with an itemized list of the repairs and invoices showing payment, and you'll probably have a limited amount of time to send it, or you'll be liable for it ALL...

But, on top of that, please answer this for me. Tell me how an employee (you) of a property management company, or even the company itself, does NOT know how to draw up and manage a residential lease? I'm NOT blaming YOU for not being trained. I'm blaming THEM.

excon