Free Mississippi Security Deposit Itemization

A Mississippi security deposit itemization statement is the written, line-by-line accounting a landlord uses to claim any part of a departing tenant’s deposit. Under the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, Miss. Code Sec. 89-8-21, a landlord who claims all or any portion of the deposit must itemize the amounts claimed in a written notice, and that notice, together with any refund, must reach the tenant no later than forty-five days after the tenancy ends, possession is delivered, and the tenant demands the deposit. The builder below assembles that itemized statement and auto-calculates the refund balance. Our Mississippi security deposit laws guide covers the wider framework, the companion Mississippi deposit return letter generates the cover note that transmits this statement, and the tenant screening laws by state hub helps you place tenants who leave the unit clean in the first place.

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Video: a plain-language walkthrough of the Mississippi deposit itemization statement – the written itemized notice, the 45-day duty, the demand and possession trigger, and the bad-faith penalty of up to two hundred dollars plus actual damages.

Generate Your Mississippi Itemization Statement

Complete the fields below to build an itemized security deposit statement ready to print, sign, and send by certified mail with the companion return letter. Enter the original deposit, list each deduction with a specific description and a dollar amount, and the builder totals the deductions, subtracts them from the deposit, and shows the refund balance live before it assembles a dated, signed PDF statement. Every figure you type flows straight into the document, so the written itemized notice that Miss. Code Sec. 89-8-21 requires is produced for you in a single step, with the arithmetic done both ways – a refund owed to the tenant, or a balance the tenant still owes when the deductions exceed the deposit.

Mississippi’s Single-Statute Deposit Framework

Mississippi keeps its security deposit rules unusually compact. The entire framework lives in one section of the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, Miss. Code Sec. 89-8-21, and there is no companion interest act, no unit-count threshold, and no statewide escrow requirement layered on top. That compactness cuts both ways. A Mississippi landlord does not have to track different rules for different building sizes, does not have to pay interest on a deposit held for a year, and does not have to open a separate trust account. But because there is no separate-account safe harbor and no cap, the duties the statute does impose – claim only the statutory categories, itemize each claim, and meet the forty-five-day deadline – carry the entire weight of compliance, and there is no procedural cushion if the accounting is wrong.

The itemization statement is where two of those three duties are satisfied on paper. It is the written notice that itemizes the amounts claimed, and it is the record that shows the accounting was done in time. The statute treats the security deposit as money that secures the tenant’s performance under the rental agreement, and it lets the landlord apply that money at move-out, but only in the specific categories the section lists and only if the landlord follows the written-itemization and timing rules. Everything else about the deposit – the amount collected, whether any interest is paid, where the money is held between move-in and move-out – is left to the lease and to the landlord’s own practice, which is why the lease terms and the move-in documentation matter so much when a Mississippi deposit deduction is later challenged.

Miss. Code Sec. 89-8-21 in Detail

The heart of the Mississippi statute for a landlord preparing an itemization is short, but every clause matters. The section lets a landlord, by written notice delivered to the tenant, claim from the deposit only such amounts as are reasonably necessary to remedy the tenant’s defaults in the payment of rent, to repair damage to the premises caused by the tenant beyond ordinary wear and tear, to clean the premises upon termination of the tenancy, or for other reasonable and necessary expenses incurred as a result of the tenant’s default. Any remaining portion of the deposit must be returned to the tenant no later than forty-five days after the termination of the tenancy, the delivery of possession, and demand by the tenant. And the retention of a deposit, or any portion of it, in violation of the section and in the absence of good faith, may subject the landlord to damages not to exceed two hundred dollars, in addition to any actual damages.

The Written Itemized Notice

The section makes the written notice the vehicle for any claim. If the landlord wants to keep even one dollar of the deposit, the landlord does so “by written notice delivered to the tenant,” and that notice must itemize the amounts claimed. This is why the itemization statement is the operative document rather than a mental calculation or a phone call. A Mississippi landlord who deducts money but never sends a written itemization has not merely been informal; the landlord has skipped the very step the statute requires to make the deduction stick. The safe reading is that no deduction is secure unless it appears, described and priced, on a written statement that actually reaches the tenant.

Itemization means specificity. A line that reads “damages – eight hundred dollars” tells the tenant nothing and gives a court nothing to test. A line that reads “drywall repair and repaint, north bedroom wall, hole approximately one foot across beyond ordinary wear and tear, contractor invoice attached – three hundred fifty dollars” tells the tenant what happened, ties the charge to a statutory category, and points to the proof. The itemization statement built above is structured to push you toward the second style: a description field and an amount field for every line, so the finished document reads as a schedule of specific, documented charges rather than a lump sum.

The Forty-Five-Day Deadline and Its Three Triggers

The deadline has a structure that catches landlords who read it too quickly. The forty-five-day count does not start on move-out alone. It starts only once three things have all happened: the termination of the tenancy, the delivery of possession, and a demand by the tenant. A tenant who vacates but keeps the keys has not delivered possession; a tenant who never asks for the deposit back has not made a demand. In theory, the full statutory clock has not started until all three occur. In practice, a careful Mississippi landlord does not gamble on that technicality. The cautious approach is to treat the date the tenant actually surrendered possession as the practical starting point, complete the itemization statement well before forty-five days pass, and send it by certified mail so the delivery date is provable.

Why treat the deadline conservatively when the triggers seem to favor waiting? Because the burden of showing good faith rests on the landlord, and a landlord who sat on the deposit while the tenant repeatedly asked for it will find “the tenant never formally demanded it” a weak defense. Waiting until day forty-four to start pricing repairs is how landlords miss the deadline, and a missed deadline paired with the absence of good faith is precisely what exposes the landlord to the statutory penalty. Speed and documentation are cheaper than a justice-court dispute.

The Bad-Faith Penalty of Two Hundred Dollars

The penalty is what gives the itemization duty its teeth, and Mississippi’s penalty is narrower than the double- or triple-damages regimes found in many other states. Under the section, the retention of a deposit or any portion of it, in violation of the section and in the absence of good faith, may subject the landlord to damages not to exceed two hundred dollars, in addition to any actual damages. Two features matter. First, the two-hundred-dollar figure is a bad-faith penalty layered on top of the money the tenant is actually owed; it is not the total exposure and it is not a cap on the refund. Second, the penalty turns on the absence of good faith – a landlord who makes an honest, documented, itemized attempt to account for the deposit stands in a very different position from one who simply keeps the money and ignores the tenant’s demand.

A word of accuracy about attorney’s fees, because it is often overstated online. Miss. Code Sec. 89-8-21 does not, by its own terms, hand a prevailing tenant a separate attorney-fee award in every deposit case; the penalty the section itself provides is the two-hundred-dollar bad-faith figure plus the tenant’s actual damages. A tenant may recover fees where the lease provides for them or where some other rule applies, but a landlord should not assume the deposit statute alone guarantees fees, and a tenant should not assume the deposit statute alone will cover a lawyer. State the rule as the section states it: up to two hundred dollars for bad-faith retention, in addition to actual damages, which for a wrongfully withheld deposit typically means the deposit itself.

Categories of Deductible Expense

Miss. Code Sec. 89-8-21 lets the landlord itemize only amounts that are reasonably necessary within a defined set of categories, and every category is anchored to something the tenant did or failed to do. Getting each deduction into the right category, and being able to say which one, is half the work of a defensible itemization.

Unpaid Rent and Charges Owed Under the Lease

Rent the tenant failed to pay is the most straightforward deduction. If the tenant left owing the final month, or left mid-term without paying through the notice period the lease required, the unpaid rent is a default in the payment of rent and can be itemized against the deposit. Late fees and other charges the lease makes owing can follow the same path, provided the lease actually created the obligation and the amount is reasonable. The itemization line should name the period and the amount – for example, “unpaid rent, month of June, four hundred fifty dollars” – not a bare “rent owed.”

Repair of Damage Beyond Ordinary Wear and Tear

The landlord may deduct to repair damage to the premises caused by the tenant, but the statute expressly excludes ordinary wear and tear from what the tenant must pay for. This is the most-litigated category, because the line between damage and wear is where reasonable people disagree. The itemization must describe the specific damage, tie it to the tenant rather than to the passage of time, and price the repair reasonably. A photograph from the move-out inspection, paired with the move-in record showing the same surface intact, is the evidence that turns a contested “wear versus damage” argument into a documented deduction.

Cleaning Upon Termination

The section allows a charge to clean the premises upon termination of the tenancy, but only to the extent the cleaning is reasonably necessary to address the tenant’s default – not to upgrade the unit past its move-in condition. A landlord who deducts for a professional deep clean when the tenant left the unit reasonably clean is claiming for ordinary turnover, not for the tenant’s default, and that charge is vulnerable. The safe approach is to tie every cleaning charge to a specific, documented condition – carpet stains, grease-caked appliances, debris left behind – and to keep the move-in record that shows the unit did not arrive in that state.

Other Reasonable and Necessary Expenses from the Tenant’s Default

The statute closes with a catch-all: other reasonable and necessary expenses incurred as a result of the tenant’s default. This category is real but narrow. It reaches costs that flow directly from something the tenant did wrong – for instance, the cost of removing bulky items the tenant abandoned, or a utility bill the lease made the tenant’s responsibility that the landlord had to pay to keep service on. It does not reach ordinary landlord operating costs or the routine expense of turning a unit for the next tenant. Every line placed in this category should be able to answer the question, “what default of the tenant made this cost necessary?”

How to Complete the Itemization Statement, Step by Step

The builder at the top of this page assembles the finished document, but the strength of the itemization comes from the work you do before you type the first figure. The steps below walk through a defensible Mississippi itemization from the move-out inspection to the certified-mail receipt, in the order a careful landlord actually performs them.

Step 1: Fix the Three Dates That Start the Clock

Before anything else, pin down the date the tenancy terminated, the date the tenant delivered possession, and the date the tenant demanded the deposit or supplied a forwarding address. Those are the three triggers that start the forty-five-day count under Miss. Code Sec. 89-8-21, and they are the dates the statement records at the top. In most tenancies the surrender of possession is the practical anchor, because it is the date you regained control of the unit and could begin the inspection. Write these dates down while they are fresh; reconstructing them months later from memory is how a landlord ends up unable to prove the statement went out on time.

Step 2: Inspect and Photograph Against the Move-In Record

Walk the unit with the move-in condition record in hand and photograph every surface where you intend to claim a charge, from the same angle as the move-in photograph wherever possible. The itemization is only as strong as the before-and-after pair behind each line. A landlord who can show the north bedroom wall intact at move-in and holed at move-out has converted a “wear versus damage” argument into a documented fact. A landlord who has only the move-out photograph, with no baseline, has invited the tenant to argue the condition predated the tenancy. Do the paired inspection first; it dictates which lines you can honestly itemize.

Step 3: Price Each Charge Reasonably and Get It in Writing

For each claimed item, obtain a paid receipt for completed work or a written estimate for work not yet done, and make sure the amount is reasonable for the market and the scope. Reasonableness is a recurring word in Miss. Code Sec. 89-8-21 – the landlord may claim only amounts reasonably necessary – and an inflated charge is the fastest way to hand a tenant a bad-faith argument. If a contractor quotes three hundred dollars to patch and repaint a damaged wall, three hundred dollars is your line; a five-hundred-dollar figure “to be safe” is exactly the kind of overreach a justice-court judge notices.

Step 4: Sort Every Cost Into a Statutory Category or Drop It

Take each priced item and ask which of the four statutory categories it belongs to: unpaid rent, damage beyond ordinary wear and tear, reasonably necessary cleaning, or another expense caused by the tenant’s default. If a cost does not fit one of those categories, it does not belong on the itemization, no matter how real the expense is to you. The routine repaint after a long tenancy, the carpet that simply wore out, the standard turnover clean of a unit the tenant left tidy – those are landlord operating costs, not tenant defaults, and putting them on the statement weakens the lines that are legitimate.

Step 5: Write Specific Description Lines

Enter each surviving item into the builder as a specific description paired with its amount. Name the location, the nature of the damage, the fact that it exceeds ordinary wear and tear where relevant, and the documentation – for example, “carpet replacement, living room, large pet-urine saturation beyond ordinary wear and tear, vendor invoice attached.” The description field is where the statute’s itemization requirement is actually satisfied. A reader who has never seen the unit should be able to understand, from the line alone, what happened and why the charge is reasonable.

Step 6: Let the Form Do the Arithmetic, Then Deliver

Enter the original deposit and any interest you chose to add, and let the builder total the deductions, subtract them from the deposit, and display the result. When the deductions come to less than the deposit, the difference is the refund balance owed to the tenant; when they equal or exceed it, the statement shows a zero refund or the additional balance the tenant owes. Generate the PDF, sign and date it, attach the receipts and estimates, enclose any refund check, and send the package by certified mail with return receipt to the forwarding address. Keep a signed copy and the mailing receipt together.

A Worked Example

Suppose a Mississippi tenant paid a security deposit of one thousand two hundred dollars and moved out owing no rent. At move-out, the paired inspection shows a one-foot hole in the north bedroom wall that was intact at move-in, and heavy pet-urine saturation of the living-room carpet that a professional had to replace. The landlord obtains a contractor invoice of three hundred fifty dollars for the drywall repair and repaint, and a vendor invoice of four hundred twenty-five dollars for the carpet replacement. Both are damage beyond ordinary wear and tear, both are documented, and both are priced from actual invoices. The itemization lists two lines totaling seven hundred seventy-five dollars, subtracts that from the one-thousand-two-hundred-dollar deposit, and shows a refund balance of four hundred twenty-five dollars owed to the tenant. That statement – two specific, documented, reasonably priced lines and a clear refund figure, delivered inside forty-five days by certified mail – is close to bad-faith-proof, because the record shows a good-faith, itemized, timely accounting.

Now change one fact: the tenant also left the final month’s rent of five hundred dollars unpaid. The itemization gains a third line – “unpaid rent, final month, five hundred dollars” – the deductions rise to one thousand two hundred seventy-five dollars, and because that exceeds the one-thousand-two-hundred-dollar deposit, the statement shows a zero refund and an additional balance of seventy-five dollars the tenant owes. The builder handles both outcomes with the same inputs; the only difference is which branch of the arithmetic the numbers land on. Being able to show the math both ways, cleanly, is exactly what a money-doctype itemization is for.

Wear and Tear Versus Damage in Mississippi

Mississippi treats ordinary wear and tear as the gradual deterioration of the unit from normal use over time – faded paint, minor carpet wear in walking paths, small scuff marks near door handles, and minor nail holes from hanging pictures. Damage is harm beyond ordinary use – large holes in walls, carpet stains or burns, broken fixtures, pet urine saturation, smoke damage, missing items, or deliberate alterations. Only damage beyond ordinary wear and tear, unpaid rent, reasonably necessary cleaning, and other expenses from the tenant’s default belong on the itemiz