Can Landlord Keep Your Security Deposit if You Signed a Lease and You Did Not Move in

[amb123]

My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of:

We live in NY we applied to an ad about a newly remodeled house. We looked at the house and we liked it so we filled out an application. We waited two days and the landlord informed us she would rent to us. We arranged to meet a week later in which we signed a month to month lease and paid a security deposit for $850. We agreed that on the first of June we would pay the first months rent.
A family emergency occurred and we were unable to rent the home. Less than 24 hours from the time we signed the lease we called and informed the landlord of the bad news. By law can she keep our security deposit?

[pman6]

the human conscience and fairness would dictate that he should be able to keep a month's rent, if he is unable to find a replacement tenant in that time frame.
you can't put the burden of your misfortunes on someone else. that's just not right.

However, in california, we have a law that requires landlords to try to mitigate their loss by finding the next suitable tenant.

If the landlord is able to find a replacement within 3 weeks, he should refund you 1 week's worth of deposit.
While there may be many applicants, many have bad credit or unstable income. So finding a suitable tenant is a pain.

Technically she can but I would take her to court for it. Did the family emergency require you to move out of state? If not then you probably won't win your case.

Why would you sue her? to test your luck?
The landlord had 1 month of income coming in on June 1. Now she doesn't, and has to go through the tedious process of screening applicants again.

[Mr. Knowitall]

We live in NY we applied to an ad about a newly remodeled house. We looked at the house and we liked it so we filled out an application. We waited two days and the landlord informed us she would rent to us. We arranged to meet a week later in which we signed a month to month lease and paid a security deposit for $850. We agreed that on the first of June we would pay the first months rent.

A family emergency occurred and we were unable to rent the home. Less than 24 hours from the time we signed the lease we called and informed the landlord of the bad news. By law can she keep our security deposit?

The first question is, what does the lease agreement (or any other contract) you sign say about the refund of deposits in the event that you back out of the lease?

The second question is, how many days before you were to take occupancy did you back out?