Return of deposit

At the end of the lease and after the establishment of the final breakdown, the landlord will return the deposit to the tenant if there are no issues to claim against. If rental payments or charges have gone unpaid, the landlord can deduct them from the amount put up for guarantee.

Time limit for return of deposit

The tenant may demand that the rental deposit be returned if:

• an outgoing inventory check, further to an incoming inventory check, has been carried out;

• the tenant has returned the keys to the property, because the return of the keys is the point marking the end of the lease.

Once these two conditions have been fulfilled, in principle, the tenant is entitled to demand the return of the rental deposit, unless it was to be deducted from the payment of an advance on additional rental expenses in addition to the monthly rent.

In this case, the tenant must wait until the annual breakdown of the additional costs is established before claiming the return of the rental deposit.

However, the law does not specify a time limit within which the landlord is required to provide the tenant with such a breakdown.

If the tenant believes they are entitled to claim the return of their deposit, they may take the following courses of action:

• firstly, send a formal demand for the return of the deposit within a specific period of time;

• then acting through the judiciary, with a rental petition.

Note that in this case, the judge is required by law to apply the mechanism of legal compensation between the rental deposit amount and the amount of charges remaining to be paid. Thus, it is not certain that the tenant will recover the whole of the rental deposit at the conclusion of the case. It may even be the case that the tenant actually owes the landlord a certain amount.

Rental deposit including a bank guarantee

If the lease agreement provides that it will be accompanied by a first demand guarantee or a simple bank guarantee, the deposit amount is placed on a special bank account belonging to the tenant.

The money in that account earns interest for the tenant, which can be claimed at the end of the contract. It also generates bank charges that will be borne by the tenant.

If the lease agreement stipulates that the bank guarantee should be paid by a simple transfer to the landlord's bank account, then the interest and fees attributable to that deposit to that account apply to the landlord.