The tenancy starts with the security deposit. There is no landlord in the world that will provide you his/her property without security deposit. You must have heard at least about the holding deposit. But there is a bit difference between the holding deposit and the security deposit. Actually as far as the security deposit is concerned you need to realize that the landlord should be assured that you will not run away. Hence the landlord will ask you for the money which he feels that is appropriate for his property.
No lease or the rental agreement states that the security deposit is non refundable. This certainly means that when you will leave the property or when the tenancy will end then the landlord will have to give you back the security deposit. However the landlord would not have to pay back the security deposit only if he has spent the money for the lawful purposes.
There is no landlord who provides the property without the security money. You may also call the security money as the last month rent, pet deposit, key fee or the cleaning money as well.
Thus the security money will be the lasts month rent as well as some specific amount of amount of money. You may call it by any name but you will have to realize that these security deposits are legal and no court will have different meaning for it. Almost all the court will tell you that the security deposit is a must.
However there is one exception. The tenant will have to pay the application screening fee and this will not be included in the security deposit. The landlord will charge you this money as he will have to do your screening. He will have to find out that all the documents related to you are genuine or not. He will check your credit report, your address proof or many more things. Thus you will realize that this is the additional job which is to be performed by the landlord. Sometimes the landlord asks the real estate agents to do this job. In that case the application screening fee is given to the real estate agent.
All these details are being written in the landlord tenant agreement form. There is another fee which is called the new tenant processing fees. This is being included in the security. In fact every deposit made by the tenant is included in the security deposit apart from the rent and the application screening fee.
