How to Write a Texas Security Deposit Demand Letter

A Texas security deposit demand letter is the written notice you send your former landlord asking for the return of your deposit, citing the law, and setting a deadline before you sue. It works because Texas Property Code § 92.109 presumes a landlord acted in bad faith if the deposit or an itemized list of deductions is not provided within 30 days of move-out, and a bad-faith landlord owes you $100, three times the amount wrongfully withheld, and your attorney’s fees.¹ A clear letter that quotes those numbers makes ignoring you more expensive than paying you.

When Your Landlord Is Already in the Wrong

Before you write anything, confirm that the 30-day clock has actually run. Under § 92.103, your landlord must refund the deposit within 30 days after you surrender the unit.² But that clock does not start until the landlord has your forwarding address in writing. Section 92.107 is explicit: no written forwarding address, no obligation to refund or itemize.³ If you never sent one, send it today. Thirty days from the date the landlord receives it, the deadline hits.

Section 92.104 governs what the landlord can take out of the deposit. Charges for damage you caused or amounts you owe under the lease are allowed. Normal wear and tear is not. When the landlord keeps any portion, the remaining balance must come back with a written, itemized list of each deduction. The only exception is undisputed unpaid rent at move-out.⁴

Section 92.109 is what gives the letter its weight. Miss the 30-day deadline and the landlord is presumed to have acted in bad faith. Two tracks of penalty follow:

Wrongfully keeping the deposit in bad faith costs the landlord $100, three times the wrongfully withheld portion, and your reasonable attorney’s fees.¹
Failing to send an itemized list in bad faith forfeits the landlord’s right to keep any part of the deposit and kills any counterclaim for property damage, with your attorney’s fees on top.¹

The landlord also carries the burden at trial of proving any retention was reasonable.¹ If $800 was taken for carpet damage and no receipts or photos exist to back it up, a court can treat the full $800 as wrongfully withheld, and the award can reach $2,400 plus the original amount.

What to Put in the Letter

Write it like a document a judge will later read. Specific, factual, dated, and short. Include each of the following:

Your full name, the rental address, your lease start and end dates, and the amount of the original security deposit.
The date you provided your written forwarding address and how you delivered it. This establishes exactly when the 30-day period started.
The amount you are demanding. If some deductions are legitimate and you accept them, subtract them and show the arithmetic. If you dispute everything, say so.
A line-by-line response to any itemized deductions you received. For each disputed charge, say why it is normal wear and tear or otherwise improper.
A citation to Texas Property Code § 92.109 and a plain-English note that a landlord who acts in bad faith owes $100, three times the wrongfully withheld amount, and your attorney’s fees.¹
A response deadline. Ten to fourteen days from the date the landlord receives the letter is standard.
A statement that if the deadline passes without full payment, you will file suit in justice court.

Keep the tone professional. Angry letters feel good to write and almost never produce a check. The point of the letter is to make the landlord recognize that paying you now is cheaper than fighting you later, and that recognition comes from calm specificity, not from volume.

Backing the Letter With Evidence

The disputed-deductions section is where most letters succeed or fail, and it depends on knowing where the law draws the line between wear and tear and damage. Texas Property Code § 92.001(4) defines normal wear and tear as deterioration from the intended use of the property, including breakage or malfunction from age or deteriorated condition, and specifically excludes deterioration caused by negligence, carelessness, accident, or abuse by the tenant, household members, or guests.⁵

Some common lines to cite in your letter:

Carpet: flattened pile and traffic-pattern wear are normal; stains cleaning cannot remove, pet urine odor, and burn marks are damage.
Walls and paint: small nail holes, fading, and discoloration near switches are normal; large holes, crayon marks, and large screw holes are damage.
Appliances: worn shelves, faded handles, and age discoloration are normal; missing parts, broken knobs, and misuse failures are damage.
Bathrooms: worn grout, water spots, and faded caulking are normal; mold from poor ventilation, cracked fixtures, and broken tiles are damage.

Behind the letter, you want the evidence that proves the point if the landlord calls your bluff. Time-stamped move-out photos and video of every room, close-ups of stove burners, oven interiors, refrigerator shelves, and behind toilets. Your move-in condition report and any move-in photos, which let you show that what the landlord now calls damage was there when you arrived. Your lease, your forwarding address letter, every text and email about the deposit, and any receipts for cleaning or repairs you handled yourself. Do not attach everything to the letter. Reference it, and bring it to court if the landlord makes you go.

How to Send It

Texas law does not require any particular method of delivery for the demand itself. The statute only requires the forwarding address to be in writing.³ Send it by certified mail with return receipt requested anyway. The green card comes back signed, giving you proof of the exact date the landlord received the letter and started the response clock.⁶

Mail a second copy by regular first-class mail the same day. Certified mail sometimes sits uncollected, and a landlord who sees the regular copy in the box cannot later claim ignorance of the letter’s contents. If the certified envelope comes back unclaimed, keep it unopened; courts generally treat an unclaimed certified letter sent to a correct address as a reasonable effort to communicate.

Send the letter to the landlord’s address stated in the lease, and, if different, to the address where you paid rent. If a management company handled the tenancy, send a copy to both the company and the property owner if you know who that is.

If the Landlord Still Doesn’t Pay

Your deadline passes with no response, or with a response that doesn’t give you what you’re owed. Texas justice courts hear civil cases up to $20,000, which covers almost every security deposit claim even after the deposit is tripled, and are built for people filing without a lawyer.⁷ You file a petition at the justice court clerk’s office, naming the landlord or management company, stating the amount you want (the withheld deposit plus the § 92.109 penalties), and briefly describing the facts.

At trial, the landlord has to prove any amount kept was reasonable.¹ Bring the demand letter, the certified mail receipt, the move-in and move-out photos, the lease, and any itemization the landlord sent. If the landlord blew the 30-day deadline on either the refund or the itemization, the bad-faith presumption does most of the work. The letter you sent is the first exhibit the judge sees, which is the whole reason to write it carefully in the first place.

1
State of Texas. Texas Property Code 92.109 – Liability of Landlord
2
State of Texas. Texas Property Code 92.103 – Obligation to Refund
3
State of Texas. Texas Property Code 92.107 – Tenant’s Forwarding Address
4
State of Texas. Texas Property Code 92.104 – Retention of Security Deposit Accounting
5
Texas State Law Library. Security Deposits – Landlord/Tenant Law
6
United States Postal Service. Certified Mail – The Basics
7
Texas State Law Library. Small Claims Cases