Free Iowa Holding Deposit Agreement

A holding deposit is money a prospective tenant pays to take a unit off the market before a lease is signed. Iowa has no statute about it. What Iowa has is § 562A.12, captioned “Rental deposits”, and a definition in § 562A.6(12) that ties the deposit to a rental agreement it secures. That definition is the whole question. If a rental agreement existed when the money changed hands, the money can be characterised as a rental deposit and every duty § 562A.12 imposes — the two months’ rent cap, the insured account, the 30-day return-or-itemise duty from termination and receipt of a mailing address, the forfeiture for silence — attaches to it. If no agreement existed, the money secures performance of nothing and is held for no tenant, and the section does not reach it by its terms. Once a lease is signed and the sum is credited to the deposit, the money secures performance of that agreement on the words of § 562A.6(12) and can be characterised as a rental deposit from then; the section does not say whether a characterisation fixed at payment can change later. Because § 562A.6(11) says a rental agreement may be “written or oral”, the line between those two positions is drawn by what was said, not by what was signed. A page that picks a side and states it as law is wrong on the text. This one states the conditional, quotes the words it rests on, and builds the record around the fact that decides it.

Fill in the fields below and the generator produces a clean, dated PDF you can print, sign and give to the applicant, keeping a copy for your file. Nothing is stored and there is no charge. Fields you leave blank print as a dash so you can complete them by hand.

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The generator above produces a holding deposit record, not a statutory form. Iowa prescribes no holding-deposit form or provision: chapter 562A contains no provision on holding deposits, holding fees, application fees or applicants, so a document captioned as though it satisfied a statute would claim something the Iowa Code does not say. What the record carries beyond a receipt is the set of facts the definition in § 562A.6(12) turns on — whether an agreement to rent had been made when the money was paid, what the money was for, whether any part of it was exclusively advance rent, where it is held, and the applicant’s mailing address — because those are the facts a dispute over characterisation will be decided by. Three limits belong on the page rather than in the form. Case law was not researched, and whether a prospective tenant is a “tenant” under § 562A.6(16) is the kind of question courts answer. Municipal ordinances were not researched. And the chapter defines a rental deposit by reference to a residential rental agreement; nothing here is offered for commercial premises. One more thing about the words: the section caption and the definition say “rental deposit” and subsection (1) says “security deposit”. This page quotes each as it reads and uses the defined term.

• The amount received, and the date it was received. The date is the fact § 562A.6(12) is applied to — the characterisation turns on whether an agreement existed when the money changed hands.
• A statement of whether a rental agreement, written or oral, has been made — and if the unit is only being held pending screening and a signed lease, those words. § 562A.6(11) makes an oral agreement a rental agreement, so this line is the record of which side of the line the money starts on.
• The unit, the proposed rent and the proposed start date, so that the two months’ rent figure in § 562A.12(1) can be computed if the money is or becomes a rental deposit.
• What the money is for and what happens to it on signing — credited to the rental deposit, credited to the first month’s rent, or returned. The chapter supplies no default.
• Whether any part of it is exclusively in advance payment of rent. § 562A.6(12) carves such a deposit out of the definition entirely, so this line decides whether § 562A.12 can reach the sum at all.
• The terms if the applicant does not proceed, stated as the parties’ agreement and not as a statutory rule, because chapter 562A contains none and never uses the word “nonrefundable”.
• The terms if the landlord does not proceed. The statute is silent on this too, and a record that addresses only the applicant’s withdrawal is half a record.
• Where the money is held — the institution — because if the money is a rental deposit, subsection (2) requires an insured institution and forbids commingling from the day of receipt.
• The applicant’s mailing address. Subsection (3)(a) runs the 30-day clock from termination and receipt of a mailing address, and (4) reverts the deposit to the landlord after one year without one. Take it at the outset.
• Both signatures, both dates, and a copy to the applicant. Chapter 562A imposes no receipt duty for this money; the copy is evidence, not compliance.

• Saying holding deposits are unregulated in Iowa. § 562A.12 does not reach the money on the literal text where no rental agreement existed when it was paid; that is an absence, not a licence, and contract law was not researched. And § 562A.6(11) lets an agreement be oral.
• Saying Iowa’s two-month cap applies to holding deposits. § 562A.12(1) caps a security deposit. It reaches a holding deposit only if that money is a rental deposit under § 562A.6(12), and the text does not say when it is.
• Telling the applicant the unit is theirs, taking the money, then calling it a “mere” holding deposit. That sequence is the one in which an oral rental agreement may already exist, and the money may have been a rental deposit from receipt.
• Taking a holding sum that, with the rental deposit, exceeds two months’ rent. If the money is or becomes a rental deposit, (1) forbids demanding or receiving more than that as security, however the parts were labelled.
• Marking the money “nonrefundable” as though a statute permitted it. Chapter 562A never uses the word. And if the money is a rental deposit, (4) forfeits every right to withhold where no written statement is given within 30 days.
• Putting the holding sum in the operating account. If it is a rental deposit, (2) required an insured institution and no commingling from the day it was received.
• Treating advance rent as a rental deposit, or a rental deposit as advance rent. § 562A.6(12) excludes a deposit “exclusively in advance payment of rent”. The word is exclusively; a mixed sum is not carved out.
• Not taking a mailing address. (3)(a) does not start the 30 days until one is received, and (4) reverts the deposit to the landlord after one year without one — but the landlord who never asked has no clean record of either.
• Quoting a return deadline for money that is not a rental deposit. Iowa sets none. The 30 days in (3)(a) belongs to rental deposits.
• Importing another state’s words. Connecticut’s “advance rental payment”, Vermont’s “however named”, Mississippi’s express carve-out for money paid “to secure the execution of a rental agreement” — none of those phrases is in Iowa’s definition, and none of their consequences follows here.

No. Iowa has a rental-deposit statute, and whether it reaches a holding deposit is the whole question. The absence is established rather than assumed. A sweep of every one of the 37 sections of chapter 562A of the Iowa Code found no use of “holding deposit”, “holding fee”, “application fee”, “applicant”, “earnest”, “nonrefundable” or “pre-lease”. The phrase “prospective tenant” appears once, in § 562A.13, and that section is about disclosing utility rates, not money.

What the chapter does contain is § 562A.12, captioned “Rental deposits.” It sets a cap, a holding duty, a return deadline, a forfeiture for silence and a penalty for bad-faith retention. Each of those rules is written for a deposit — the cap in (1) says “security deposit”, the definition says “rental deposit” — held for a “tenant”, and “rental deposit” and “tenant” are both defined in § 562A.6. So an Iowa landlord asking “what does the law say about my holding deposit” is really asking whether the money fits a definition written without holding deposits in mind. That question has a precise answer on the words and an open answer on the facts, and this page gives both.

Two things follow immediately. A page that says holding deposits are unregulated in Iowa has ignored a definition that may capture them. A page that says the two-month cap applies to holding deposits in Iowa has invented a rule the section does not state. The correct statement is conditional, and the rest of this page is the condition.

It ties the deposit to a rental agreement it secures, and it carves out advance rent. § 562A.6(12), verbatim:

“‘Rental deposit’ means a deposit of money to secure performance of a residential rental agreement, other than a deposit which is exclusively in advance payment of rent.”

Three phrases do the work. “To secure performance of a residential rental agreement” is the object of the deposit: it exists to secure an agreement. Money paid when no agreement exists secures the performance of nothing, and on the literal text is not a rental deposit. “Residential” limits the chapter to dwellings, which is why nothing here is offered for commercial premises. And “other than a deposit which is exclusively in advance payment of rent” removes from the definition any sum that is purely prepaid rent, regardless of when it was paid.

The definition points to another. § 562A.6(11) provides that “‘Rental agreement’ means an agreement written or oral”, and continues from there. That is the provision that keeps the holding-deposit question open. If a rental agreement had to be written, a holding deposit paid before signing could never secure one, and the answer would be simple. It does not have to be written. An agreement to rent, made in words, is a rental agreement for this chapter.

And the tenant is defined the same way. § 562A.6(16): “‘Tenant’ means a person entitled under a rental agreement to occupy a dwelling unit to the exclusion of another.” Every duty in § 562A.12 runs to a tenant, and subsection (2) repeats the tie in its own words: the deposit is held “for the tenant, who is a party to the agreement”. A person who has not agreed to rent is entitled under no rental agreement and is not a tenant. A person who has agreed, even orally, may be.

One point of vocabulary. The caption says “Rental deposits” and the definition is of a “rental deposit”, but subsection (1) reads “A landlord shall not demand or receive as a security deposit an amount or value in excess of two months’ rent.” This page quotes each as it reads and uses “rental deposit” as the defined term. It does not smooth the difference away, because the words are the source.

When it secures performance of a rental agreement — and because an agreement may be oral, that can be the moment the parties agree to rent, before anything is signed. The text supports two readings of the same transaction, and it decides between them for no particular case.

The first reading. An applicant views a unit, is told it will be held while screening runs, pays a sum, and no agreement to rent has yet been made by either side. On the literal words of § 562A.6(12), that money secures no rental agreement. The applicant is not a tenant under (16). Subsection (2)’s holding duty, (3)(a)’s 30-day clock and (4)’s forfeiture do not reach the money by their terms, and the two-month cap in (1) does not apply to it. What governs the money is whatever the parties agreed — and chapter 562A supplies no rule for that agreement at all.

The second reading. The landlord tells the applicant the unit is theirs at a stated rent from a stated date; the applicant says yes and pays. Nothing is signed. But § 562A.6(11) says a rental agreement may be oral, and an oral agreement to rent may have been made in that exchange. If it was, the money paid at that moment can be characterised as a deposit “to secure performance” of it, and it is a rental deposit from the day of receipt: capped, held in an insured institution, returnable or itemised within 30 days of termination and a mailing address, forfeitable in full for silence.

The statute does not say which reading applies. It turns on whether an agreement existed when the money changed hands, which is a question about what was said and meant, not about what § 562A.12 provides. That is a question courts answer, and case law was searched in no state for this page. The practical consequence is that the record you make at the door is the evidence, and the single most useful line in it is a plain statement of whether the unit is being held pending a lease or has been agreed to be let.

Separately, and regardless of timing, money that is “exclusively in advance payment of rent” is not a rental deposit. The carve-out turns on what the money is, not on what it is called.

Iowa sets no holding-deposit cap. If the money is a rental deposit, § 562A.12(1) caps it at two months’ rent. Verbatim:

“A landlord shall not demand or receive as a security deposit an amount or value in excess of two months’ rent.”

The verbs are worth reading twice. The landlord may neither demand nor receive more than two months’ rent as security. So where a holding sum is a rental deposit, or may be characterised as one once the lease is signed and the sum is credited against the deposit, what counts against the cap is the total the landlord has received as security — not the label attached to each part at the door. A holding sum of one month’s rent credited toward a rental deposit of two months’ rent is within the cap; a holding sum that is kept in addition to a two-month deposit is not.

Where no rental agreement existed when the money was paid, (1) does not reach it by its terms, and the chapter contains no other figure. That is not a licence; it is an absence. A landlord who keeps the holding sum within two months’ rent, counting whatever else will be held as security, never has to find out which reading applies to the amount.

Do not import a figure from elsewhere. Iowa’s number is two months’ rent, in (1), and it applies to a security deposit. No other cap on this page is Iowa’s.

For the tenant, in an insured institution, uncommingled — from the day it is received. Subsection (2) provides that rental deposits “shall be held by the landlord for the tenant, who is a party to the agreement”. The rest of the subsection, described rather than quoted, requires the deposit to be kept in an insured institution, forbids commingling it with the landlord’s own funds, and gives the landlord the interest earned in the first five years.

Two things matter for a holding deposit. First, the phrase “who is a party to the agreement” is the definitional tie stated a second time: the money is held for a tenant, and a tenant is a party to a rental agreement. It is the same condition as in § 562A.6(12), and it points the same way. Second, the duty attaches on receipt, not on signing. If the money was a rental deposit when it was paid — because an oral agreement already existed — then depositing it into an operating account was a breach of (2) on day one, before the lease was ever drafted. That is one of two breaches that can be complete before the characterisation question is even asked — the other is receiving more than two months’ rent under (1) — and it is the easiest to avoid: put holding sums in the same insured account as rental deposits, and note the institution in the record.

Return or itemise within 30 days of termination and a mailing address, or forfeit every right to withhold. These are the rules a holding deposit is measured against if it is a rental deposit, so they belong on this page in full.

Subsection (3)(a), described: the landlord must return the deposit, or deliver a written itemised statement, within 30 days of termination and receipt of the tenant’s mailing address. Both conditions must be met before the 30 days run.

Subsection (4) provides: a landlord who gives no statement within those 30 days must “forfeit all rights to withhold any portion” of the deposit. The forfeiture is total; it is not limited to the disputed part. And where the tenant supplies no mailing address within one year, the deposit reverts to the landlord.

Subsection (7): retention in bad faith exposes the landlord to punitive damages “not to exceed twice the monthly rental payment”.

Iowa counts this rule in days — 30 of them — and in one year for reversion. Nothing on this page converts those units, and nothing here supplies a figure for money that is not a rental deposit, because the chapter supplies none.

Chapter 562A does not address an applicant who pays and does not proceed. The answer depends on whether the money was a rental deposit, and the text does not decide that. The word “applicant” appears in none of the chapter’s 37 sections; nor does “earnest”, “nonrefundable”, “holding deposit” or “holding fee”. There is no Iowa provision that says a holding deposit is forfeited when the applicant withdraws, and none that says it must be returned.

If no rental agreement existed when the money was paid — the unit was held pending screening and a lease, and neither side had agreed to rent — the money secures performance of no agreement and is not a rental deposit on the literal words of § 562A.6(12). § 562A.12 does not reach it by its terms: no cap, no 30-day clock, no forfeiture. What governs the money is what the parties agreed in the holding-deposit record, and chapter 562A contains no rule about that agreement. It neither authorises a forfeiture term nor forbids one; the chapter never uses the word “nonrefundable”. This page does not say whether such a term is enforceable, because the text does not say, and whatever general law of contract would govern it was not researched.

If a rental agreement did exist — because the parties had agreed, even orally, that the applicant would rent the unit — the money may be a rental deposit, held “for the tenant, who is a party to the agreement” under (2). The applicant’s withdrawal is then a failure to perform the agreement the deposit secured, and the deposit exists “to secure performance”. But the return path in (3)(a) is written for the end of a tenancy: 30 days from termination and a mailing address. Whether an agreement that never proceeded to occupancy has terminated for that purpose, and what the landlord may itemise against a deposit where the tenant never moved in, is not answered by the text. The statute is silent on the tenant who pays and never takes possession, and this page says so rather than filling the gap.

The practical rule that survives both readings is the one in the steps above: if the applicant walks, act within 30 days of the withdrawal, in writing, to the mailing address you took at the outset, either returning the money or stating in an itemised statement what is kept. If the money was a rental deposit, that meets the timing and notice mechanics (3)(a) and (4) set out; what may lawfully be withheld is not something the statutory text read for this page resolves, and a timely statement does not settle it. If it was not, the statute requires nothing, and the written statement is the record of what the parties agreed.

The statute is silent. Nothing in chapter 562A addresses a landlord who takes a holding deposit and then declines to let. Again the answer branches on the same fact.

If no rental agreement existed, § 562A.12 does not reach the money by its terms, and the chapter says nothing about what the landlord must do with it. The holding-deposit record is the only rule there is. A record that states the money will be returned in full if the landlord does not proceed gives the applicant a written term to rely on; a record that says nothing leaves the question to whatever law governs the parties’ agreement, which was not researched for this page.

If a rental agreement existed, the money may be a rental deposit, and it is held “for the tenant, who is a party to the agreement” under (2). A landlord who then keeps it is holding, for the tenant, money whose purpose was to secure the tenant’s performance — and the tenant has not failed to perform; the landlord has declined to proceed. The chapter provides no express rule for that situation. What it does provide is (3)(a)’s 30-day return-or-itemise duty from termination and a mailing address, (4)’s forfeiture of every right to withhold where no statement is given, and (7)’s punitive damages for bad-faith retention, “not to exceed twice the monthly rental payment”. Whether the landlord’s own refusal to proceed is a termination that starts the 30 days is not answered by the text. What can be said is that a landlord who withdraws and keeps money the statute describes as held for the tenant is closer to (7) than anyone should want to be.

The statute gives the applicant no remedy specific to a landlord’s withdrawal from a holding arrangement, and this page does not invent one. Whatever the applicant might recover for the lost unit is a question outside chapter 562A and outside this record.

Yes. A deposit “exclusively in advance payment of rent” is not a rental deposit, whenever it was paid. That is the carve-out in the second half of § 562A.6(12), and it cuts across the timing question entirely.

The carve-out turns on what the money is, not on what it is called. A sum that is exclusively advance rent is not a rental deposit, and § 562A.12 does not cap it, does not require it to be held in an insured institution, and does not run a 30-day return clock on it. On this page’s reading — the text does not say so — a sum the landlord intends to keep if the applicant walks is functioning as security, not as advance rent, and a label in the holding record does not change what the money does.

The word that controls is exclusively. A sum that is partly rent in advance and partly security is not exclusively advance rent and is not carved out. A holding sum that the record describes as “to be applied to the deposit or the first month’s rent as the landlord elects” is not exclusively anything, and the carve-out does not reach it. Where the money is security, the cap in (1) becomes the relevant figure the moment it is a rental deposit.

The chapter does not say. It never uses the word. The sweep found “nonrefundable” nowhere in chapter 562A. That is the sweep result, and it is all this page claims: the word does not appear.

That silence has two edges. Where no rental agreement existed when the money was paid, the chapter supplies no rule at all, and whether a non-refundable term in the holding record is enforceable is a question for the general law governing the parties’ agreement, which was not researched here. This page does not state that such a term is valid, and does not state that it is void.

Where a rental agreement did exist, the money may be a rental deposit, and the statute’s own structure is difficult to square with a blanket forfeiture. The deposit is defined as money “to secure performance” of an agreement; it is held “for the tenant” under (2); it must be returned or itemised within 30 days under (3)(a); and under (4) a landlord who gives no written statement in that time must “forfeit all rights to withhold any portion”. A term that the whole sum is kept regardless of anything is a term that no itemised statement can support. The section does not say in words that such a term is void, and this page does not say so either. It says that if the money is a rental deposit, the landlord’s right to keep any of it depends on a written, itemised statement within 30 days, and a label applied at the door does not replace that.

The ten items in the requirements list above, and nothing the statute does not make relevant. Each of those lines answers to a specific piece of the statute. The date and the statement about agreement are the facts § 562A.6(12) and (11) are applied to; together they are the record of which side of the line the money started on. The rent figure lets the two months’ rent cap in § 562A.12(1) be computed if the money is or becomes a rental deposit. The advance-rent line decides whether the definition’s carve-out removes the sum from § 562A.12 altogether. The withdrawal terms are the only rules there are for either side’s withdrawal, because the chapter supplies none. The institution is the answer to subsection (2) if it applies. The mailing address is what starts the 30 days under (3)(a) and what prevents reversion under (4) after one year.

Iowa prescribes no holding-deposit form or provision, and chapter 562A imposes no receipt duty for holding money. The record’s value is evidentiary. In a state whose statute decides the question by asking whether an agreement existed when the money was paid, a dated document that says in plain words what had and had not been agreed is worth more than any clause about forfeiture.

Once a lease is signed and the sum is credited to the deposit, the money secures performance of that agreement on the words of § 562A.6(12) and can be characterised as a rental deposit from then; the section does not say whether a characterisation fixed at payment can change later. On that characterisation the holding sum credited to the deposit is part of what the landlord has received as a security deposit for the purpose of the two-month cap in (1); it is held for a tenant who is a party to the agreement under (2); and it falls to be returned or itemised within 30 days of termination and a mailing address under (3)(a). The section states none of that as a conversion rule, and this page does not state one either.

Three practical consequences. The lease should state how the holding sum was applied, so that the deposit the tenant paid and the deposit the landlord holds are the same figure on paper. The combined amount — holding sum plus any further deposit taken at signing — should be kept within two months’ rent, because where (1) applies it is measured against what is demanded or received in total. And if instead the holding sum is applied exclusively to the first month’s rent, it leaves the definition by the carve-out and is not counted against the cap at all; the lease should say that in terms.

Signing does not, however, settle what the money was before signing. If an oral agreement existed when it was paid, (2)’s holding duty attached then, and a landlord who commingled it in the interval was in breach in the interval. That is why the steps above say to hold the money as if (2) applied from receipt.

All seven states compared here have been read from primary text — five from their codified publications, Mississippi from the Legislature’s bill documents, Georgia from the General Assembly’s enacted-act PDFs — and none of them has a holding-deposit statute. Each has a security- or rental-deposit statute, and the difference between them is how far the definition reaches toward money paid before a lease exists.

Iowa ties the deposit to “performance of a residential rental agreement” and lets the agreement be oral, so the reach depends on whether an agreement existed when the money was paid; it caps a security deposit at two months’ rent. Kansas, by contrast, is the cleanest “no” on its face: K.S.A. 58-2543(m) defines a security deposit as a sum “specified in a rental agreement”, deposited “by a tenant” and forfeitable “under the terms of the rental agreement” — tied to an existing agreement three times — and its definition of rental agreement likewise includes “written or oral”, leaving the same doorway. Its cap is one month’s periodic rent for an unfurnished unit. Connecticut reaches pre-lease money through a broader word: a security deposit is “any advance rental payment” other than first month’s rent or a key or equipment deposit, capped at two months’ rent for a tenant under sixty-two and one month’s rent for a tenant sixty-two or older; its tenant is likewise a person entitled “under a rental agreement”, and a rental agreement is “written or oral”. Vermont reaches money “however named” but requires it to be “refundable to the tenant at the termination or expiration of the tenancy”, presupposing a tenancy; it sets no cap, and what happens to money paid by someone who never becomes a tenant is not answered by its section. California is the one state whose definition names pre-lease money expressly: “security” includes any payment “imposed at the beginning of the tenancy to be used to reimburse the landlord for costs associated with processing a new tenant”, capped at one month’s rent, with a two-month exception at § 1950.5(c)(5) for certain small natural-person landlords, though whether the section addresses a tenant who pays and never takes possession is open. Mississippi is the one state that names pre-lease money and carves it out: its section governs deposits that secure performance of a rental agreement “other than a payment or deposit, including an advance payment of rent, made to secure the execution of a rental agreement” — which describes a holding deposit exactly and removes it from the section’s reach; it sets no cap. Mississippi’s text was retrieved from the Legislature’s bill server rather than the codified publication.

Georgia, by contrast, was read from enacted-act PDFs rather than the codified O.C.G.A. — the General Assembly’s own documents — and this page says so. § 44-7-30(3), as enacted by 2007 SB 94, defines a security deposit as money given “by a tenant to a landlord which shall be held by the landlord on behalf of a tenant by virtue of a residential rental agreement”; § 44-7-30.1 (2024 HB 404) caps it at two months’ rent for residential lease agreements entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2024; § 44-7-34(a) requires return within 30 days after the landlord obtains possession. Across the four enacted acts no holding-deposit provision appears, and the 2007 act deleted the former exclusion of “earnest money”. Money paid before any agreement exists is not addressed; once a residential rental agreement exists and the money is held for the tenant, it is a security deposit. Two things are open: the codified text was not read, and whether a reservation payment made with no agreement is recoverable is a contract question the statute does not answer.

The pattern is the point. Connecticut, Kansas, Mississippi and Vermont, like Iowa, define the tenant as a person entitled under a rental agreement and let a rental agreement be oral (no tenant or rental-agreement definition was read for California), so the same conditional governs in each of them: before an agreement, the money is outside the statute on the literal text; after one, it may be inside. Iowa’s version of that conditional is written into its definition of the deposit itself — “to secure performance of a residential rental agreement” — and it is the version this page has stated. None of the other states’ words are Iowa’s, and none of their figures apply here.

If the applicant becomes the tenant and the record so provides, the money on this page becomes part of the security deposit, and from that moment the rules that matter are the ones on what a landlord may hold and when it must come back. Those are set out in Iowa security deposit laws, which is the page to read before you decide how the holding sum will be credited.

A holding deposit is taken while screening is under way, so what a landlord may ask an applicant, what a report may contain and what an adverse decision requires are the questions running alongside it. Iowa tenant screening laws covers that ground, including the federal rules that apply in every state.

Whether an agreement to rent has been formed is the fact this whole page turns on, and it is a question of general landlord-tenant law rather than of any deposit section. Our guide to Iowa landlord-tenant laws sets out the framework the deposit rules sit inside.

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