Amount Dispute - Deposit Return - Disputes - Laws for Tenants in Alberta

Dispute as to Amount Owed from Security Deposit

If your landlord does not return the security deposit, does not give you a statement of account, or makes deductions that you think are not justified, your options are to:

attempt to resolve the issue by discussion with your landlord;
file a request for mediation with a Landlord Tenant Advisory Service, if there is one in the area;
file a claim in either Provincial Court, Civil Division, or the Court of Queen's Bench.

If you file a claim in court, the court will look at the agreement between you and the landlord concerning the security deposit in order to determine what the landlord is entitled to deduct. It is also possible that your landlord will find that the security deposit is not enough to cover the cost of damaged items. Your landlord then may consider taking legal action against you to recover the rest.

When the court considers a disagreement over what is owing from a security deposit, it can make a number of different orders. The court can order how much the landlord is entitled to deduct from the security deposit, and how much is returned to you. The court can also order that the failure to account for the security deposit means that the landlord cannot keep any of it. However, even where it is found that a landlord cannot keep any of the deposit because he failed to account for it, the court might still find that you owe the landlord money for damage to the property, which is more than the amount of the security deposit.

For example, if the security deposit was $200 and the landlord kept it at the end of the tenancy and did not account for it, you might start an action in court to get the deposit back. Your landlord might counter claim that you actually owe him $800 in total for damage to the property. The court might say that the landlord cannot keep the security deposit because he did not account for it. But the court might also say that after it considered the facts, it decided that the claim of $800 (or any part of it) for damage is justified and therefore you have to pay the landlord $600.

If the court orders either you or the landlord to pay the amount claimed, the court does not collect the money owed. If your landlord does not pay the money in accordance with the court order, you will have to take action to enforce the judgment in an attempt to recover the money. This can include hiring a civil enforcement agency to enforce the court order, or applying to the Court of Queen's Bench for an order to garnishee wages or a bank account.

May 2005