Quote Quoting Just Breath
View Post
I'm not familiar with California's landlord/tenant laws, but as a former apartment manager, I can tell you that the purpose of the holding deposit is to compensate the landlord from any loss that might occur as a result of you NOT signing the lease. When you placed your deposit, the LL took the unit off the market. If you move in as agreed, then the deposit is applied to your security deposit.....if you don't, then the landlord keeps it to offset his loss caused by taking the unit off the market for you.

You might just start by calling the property owner and ASKING them if you are entitled to any refund of your holding deposit if you don't hold up your end of the agreement.
I understand that -- but normally, holding deposits are SIGNIFICANTLY less than the total security deposit for an apartment. I also understand not moving in is unfair to the landlord because it carries an opportunity cost to him -- and I'm prepared to pay some kind of penalty for backing out at this stage. But him keeping our entire security deposit when we've never signed a lease and never moved in doesn't seem fair. The entire deposit we were asked to pay is well over $1000; most holding deposits are far less.

Obviously we're going to talk to the apartment rental company about this -- my boyfriend should have asked what portion of the holding deposit was refundable before he put down such a large amount of money. But before we have that conversation, I want to know what my rights are under applicable state and city laws. That's my question: what are our legal obligations and rights in this situation? It doesn't make sense to have that conversation with our would-be landlord until we know what the law says.