Multiple Tenants

If you are sharing a rental property and each of you has paid part of the security deposit, the landlord is under no obligation to return part of the security deposit if one tenant leaves before the tenancy is over. The only exception would be if both landlord and tenants had specifically agreed in the original tenancy agreement to the partial return of the deposit before the tenancy is over. In the absence of such an agreement, the security deposit will only be returned when the tenancy ends. When the security deposit is returned at the end of the tenancy, the landlord must make the cheque out to all original tenants even if some have already left the premises.

May 2005