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A security deposit demand letter is a dated demand for a number and a date — not a complaint. It names the deposit, the deductions you accept, the balance you want, and the deadline the statute already set. Fill the four fields below and this page gives you the balance, the statutory deadline for Florida or Connecticut, and the exact consequence each of those two statutes attaches to a landlord who lets the date pass — then copy the letter and send it.
Balance to demand — Connecticut, tenancy ended September 30, 2026
Statutory deadline October 21, 2026 — 21 days after the tenancy ended
Leave it at 0 if you are contesting every deduction. Whatever you type here comes off the balance, and the balance is the figure the letter asks for.
The deadline is calendar days counted from the tenancy end date: September 30 plus 21 days is October 21. The money is carried to the cent and nothing else is rounded.
This is the whole document. Square brackets are the only parts you replace — everything outside them stays as written, because a demand letter is judged on what it states, not on how it reads.
A move out letter to landlord is the tenant's notice of the date they will leave, not a deposit return letter; a demand letter comes later, when neither the money nor that statement has arrived.
[Your name] [Your street address] [City, state, ZIP] [Date] [Landlord or property manager] [Management company, if any] [Address the rent was sent to] Re: Return of security deposit — [property address], tenancy ended [move-out date] Dear [name], I rented [property address] from [start date] to [move-out date]. On [date paid] I paid a security deposit of $[deposit]. I returned the keys on [move-out date] and left the unit in the condition the lease required apart from ordinary wear. As of the date of this letter I have received neither the deposit nor a written statement itemising any deductions. [State] law requires you to return the deposit, or to send an itemised statement of what you are withholding, by [deadline date] — [number of days] days after the tenancy ended, under [statute citation]. I accept $[deductions accepted] of any claim you may have: [item and amount], [item and amount]. I do not accept any other deduction. The balance owed to me is $[balance], which is $[deposit] less $[deductions accepted]. Please send $[balance] to [address] by [date ten days out]. If the money or an itemised statement has not arrived by then, I will treat the deposit as withheld without a statement and pursue the remedy [state] provides — [the statutory consequence] — and I will rely on this letter and its delivery record for that purpose. Payment to [address], or a reply to [email] or [phone], both reach me. Sincerely, [signature] [printed name]
Send it by a method that leaves a record. The statutes quoted further down are about the date the notice is given, and a record of delivery is the only thing that proves that date later.
Two states were read for this page, from the statute text on each state's own legislative site. Both rows below quote the section, and the deadline column is the section's own number, not a summary of it.
| State | Section read | Deadline after the tenancy ends | If the deadline passes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | Fla. Stat. §83.49(3)(a) | 15 days if no claim is made30 days to send a claim notice by certified mail | Forfeits the right to impose a claim and may not seek a setoffmay still sue for damages after returning the deposit |
| Connecticut | Conn. Gen. Stat. §47a-21(d)(2) | 21 daysor 15 days after written notice of a forwarding address, whichever is later | Liable for twice the amount of the deposit$10 or twice the interest, whichever is greater, if interest is the only thing withheld |
Fla. Stat. §83.49(3)(a), The 2026 Florida Statutes, leg.state.fl.us: “if the landlord does not intend to impose a claim on the security deposit, the landlord must return the security deposit, together with interest if otherwise required, within 15 days after the termination of the rental agreement.” Where a claim is coming, the landlord must give written notice “within 30 days after the termination of the rental agreement,” and the same subsection says that a landlord who fails to give that notice “forfeits the right to impose a claim upon the security deposit and may not seek a setoff against the deposit but may file an action for damages after returning the security deposit to the tenant.”
Conn. Gen. Stat. §47a-21(d)(2), 2026 Supplement revised to January 1, 2026, cga.ct.gov: “Not later than twenty-one days after termination of a tenancy or fifteen days after receiving written notification of such tenant's forwarding address, whichever is later, each landlord other than a rent receiver shall deliver to the tenant or former tenant at such forwarding address either (A) the full amount of the security deposit paid by such tenant plus accrued interest, or (B) the balance of such security deposit and accrued interest after deduction for any damages suffered by such landlord by reason of such tenant's failure to comply with such tenant's obligations, together with a written statement itemizing the nature and amount of such damages.” The penalty sits in the next sentence: “Any landlord who violates any provision of this subsection shall be liable for twice the amount of any security deposit paid by such tenant, except that, if the only violation is the failure to deliver the accrued interest, such landlord shall be liable for ten dollars or twice the amount of the accrued interest, whichever is greater.”
Two states, read this round. The other 48 were not read, and neither row above is a national rule — a demand letter that cites the wrong state's deadline is worse than one that cites none. If your state is not here, look the section up before you send anything.
Four cases, all of them reproducible on the calculator above by typing the same four numbers. The fourth row is the one people get wrong.
| Case | Working | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Connecticut, deposit $1,800.00, nothing accepted, ended 2026-09-30 | 1,800.00 − 0.00, then +21 days | $1,800.00 duedeadline 2026-10-21; 2 × 1,800.00 = $3,600.00 |
| Florida, deposit $1,800.00, no claim made, ended 2026-09-30 | 1,800.00 − 0.00, then +15 days | $1,800.00 duedeadline 2026-10-15 |
| Florida, deposit $1,800.00, a claim is made, ended 2026-09-30 | 1,800.00 − 0.00, then +30 days | $1,800.00 dueclaim notice due 2026-10-30; miss it and the claim is forfeited |
| Connecticut, deposit $1,800.00, $250.00 accepted, ended 2026-09-30 | 1,800.00 − 250.00, then +21 days | $1,550.00 duepenalty still 2 × 1,800.00 = $3,600.00 |
That last row is where the arithmetic stops matching intuition. Connecticut multiplies the deposit that was paid — $1,800.00 — not the balance still owed. Accepting $250.00 of the landlord's deductions lowers what you ask for to $1,550.00 and leaves the statutory figure at $3,600.00, because the section reads “twice the amount of any security deposit paid by such tenant.” Run the same four numbers above with 250 in the deductions field and the page prints $1,550.00 and $3,600.00 on the same screen.
It does not tell you what your state's deadline is unless your state is Florida or Connecticut. It does not decide whether a deduction is fair, and it does not value damage against wear — that is a separate question with its own evidence. It does not file anything, and it is not legal advice: the two sections quoted above are the whole of what was read, and a letter is a document you send, not a proceeding you win. Where the two disagree, the statute controls and this page is only the arithmetic on top of it.
One page. Four things have to be in it and nothing else has to be: the deposit you paid, the deductions you accept, the balance you want, and the date the statute set. A letter that adds a paragraph about how the landlord behaved gives the reader something to argue with that has nothing to do with the money.
The statutes quoted here turn on when notice is given, so what matters is a record of the date. Florida's section names certified mail for the landlord's claim notice; Connecticut's counts from written notification of a forwarding address, which means your letter is also how the clock gets a second starting point. A method that produces a dated receipt does that job; a text message usually does not.
Then the letter changes shape: you are not demanding a statement, you are disputing lines in one. Keep the same four fields, put the items you accept in the deductions field, and say plainly which lines you reject and why. The deadline matters less at that point than the itemisation does.
The balance on this page is the deposit minus what you accept, and that is the figure the letter asks for. Anything beyond it — a statutory multiple, interest, a filing fee — depends on a section this page did not read for your state, and guessing at it is how a demand letter gets answered with a citation instead of a cheque.
Because both rows were read from the statute text on the state's own site this round, and a third row would have been a summary of a summary. California, Texas and New York were attempted and did not return readable statute text, so they are absent rather than guessed.
No. The deadline is when the landlord's own obligation falls due. What you do after it passes is a separate decision, and in Connecticut the section itself supplies the multiplier while in Florida it supplies a forfeiture. Read the section before you decide which of those you are claiming.