I had a tenant who signed a year-long lease and then broke it after four months. I did not refund the security deposit, as stated in the terms of the lease. Now, a couple of months later, she is threatening to sue for the deposit amount. When I looked at the lease copy, she had crossed out the lease termination date herself, and then put her initials next to it. I did not notice this change at the time, in fact I didn't even look at the lease again after she had signed it until now. Wouldn't my initals also have to be included for a change to be valid? Or wouldn't it have to be notarized? What is the law here?

Laws may vary from state to state. Best to contact your Attorney General's office. You have the original lease agreement, so I would believe that would hold up in court. If there are any changes to a lease, both parties need to agree and sign, at least they do here in North Dakota.

I will say that she was planing this when she moved in, and she assumed you would not review the lease with her.

Always, always go over the lease with them and have them sign it in your presence. And don't ever accept one back without an approval.

This may well be accepted in court as a valid change if it is done on your copy and you accepted it back from her, with her deposit and rental amount.

But let her sue, you can't stop her, and I would make her do it before I agreed to give her many money back.

Take it to court, tell the judge the truth, also show how long the rental was empty after she moved out, show proof of any cleaining you had to do and so on.

If I had a dollar for every time a tenant in one of my rentals threatened to sue me I could retire today. Laugh at them and tell them to sue to their hearts content. Most never do, and if they do sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. If you lose you learn from it.