Free Georgia Holding Deposit Agreement

A holding deposit is money a prospective tenant pays to take a unit off the market before a lease is signed. Nothing in the four enacted Georgia acts read for this page addresses it. What Georgia has is Article 2 of Chapter 7 of Title 44 of the Official Code, the security-deposit article, and a definition in § 44-7-30(3) that decides how far that article reaches. It reaches 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”, and it says in terms that the category includes “advance rent deposits”. It does not reach, and does not mention, money paid by someone who has not yet agreed to rent. Between those two positions sits every holding deposit paid in the state, and the article does not say on which side a given one lands. This page sets out the enacted text, states the conditional honestly, says where the statute is silent, and produces a record designed to fix the fact the statute turns on: whether, when the money was paid, there was a residential rental agreement under which the landlord was holding it for a tenant. It also says plainly where its text comes from — the enacted Acts, not the codification — because that limit belongs on the page and not in a footnote.

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.

Watch: Free Georgia Holding Deposit Agreement — Fillable PDF explained

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The generator above produces a holding deposit record, not a statutory form. Georgia prescribes no holding-deposit document because Georgia has no holding-deposit statute, so a document captioned as though it satisfied one would claim something Article 2 of Chapter 7 of Title 44 does not say. What the record does is fix the facts the article makes decisive: who paid what, for which unit, on what date, whether a residential rental agreement had by then been made, whether the money is being held on the tenant’s behalf under it, where it is being held, and what each side undertook to do with it in each outcome. It is built around the conditional in § 44-7-30(3) rather than around a rule the article does not contain. Four limits belong on the page rather than in the form. First, the record does not decide whether a residential rental agreement was formed; it records what the parties said, and a court would decide what that amounted to. Case law was searched in no state for these pages. Second, municipal ordinances were not researched. Third, three sections of the article — § 44-7-32 on surety bonds, § 44-7-36 and § 44-7-37 — were not fetched, and no claim about their contents, including any claim of absence, is made here. Fourth, the text relied on is the enacted Act text from the General Assembly’s document server, not the LexisNexis codification, which sat behind a sign-in wall; currency rests on the reported amendment histories and on a read of 2024 HB 404, which adds § 44-7-30.1 and does not touch the other sections.

• The amount received, the date, and the method of payment. If the money is or becomes a security deposit, § 44-7-30.1 caps it at the equivalent of two months’ rent and § 44-7-35(c) triples “the sum improperly withheld”; the record fixes the figures those rules are measured against.
• The unit, the parties, and the name of the person who paid. § 44-7-30(3) speaks of money given “by a tenant to a landlord”; the record should leave no doubt who each would be.
• Whether a residential rental agreement has been made, in terms. The definition reaches money held “by virtue of a residential rental agreement”, and § 44-7-30(2) lets that be “a contract, lease, or license agreement”. This line is the one the whole article turns on.
• A statement of what the payment is — a deposit to hold the unit off the market until a stated date — and whether it is refundable. Georgia’s only nonrefundable category, § 44-7-30(1), is money paid “under the terms of a residential rental agreement which the parties agreed would not be refunded”.
• Where the money is being held. § 44-7-31 requires a security deposit to sit in an escrow account established only for that purpose, and requires tenants to be told in writing where. Recording the account satisfies the writing requirement if the duty attaches.
• The date the hold ends and what happens if no lease is signed by then. Georgia prescribes no holding period; the parties supply it.
• What happens to the money on signing — whether it is credited to the security deposit or to rent. Credited to the security deposit, it is inside § 44-7-30(3) without any doubt; credited to rent, it sits between the included “advance rent deposits” and the excluded money “applied toward the payment of rent”, which the page leaves open.
• What happens if the applicant withdraws. The article does not say; the record must. Nothing on this page shows that a forfeiture clause in a pre-lease record is one of the retention grounds § 44-7-34(a) lists, and the page does not say such a clause is enforceable.
• What happens if the landlord withdraws. The article does not say. At minimum the record should commit to return in full, and by when.
• The return method and the address for return, so that the 30-day period in § 44-7-34(a) can be met if it applies; the section deems mailing to the last known address by first-class mail to be compliance.
• A note that no Georgia holding-deposit form or deadline exists, so nobody later reads the record as a statutory form or reads the parties’ chosen dates as statutory ones.

• Saying holding deposits are unregulated in Georgia. § 44-7-30(3) reaches “advance rent deposits” and anything else held for a tenant by virtue of a residential rental agreement, and that agreement may be a “contract, lease, or license agreement”. Once an agreement exists and the money is held under it, every rule attaches.
• Saying the security-deposit rules apply to every holding deposit. The definition is tied to a tenant and a residential rental agreement, and the article says nothing about money paid before either exists. Neither absolute statement is true; the conditional is.
• Quoting the earnest-money exclusion. The sentence excluding earnest money and pet fees was struck by 2007 SB 94. It is repealed text, and a page that prints it as Georgia law is wrong.
• Taking more than two months’ rent. § 44-7-30.1 bars a landlord from demanding or receiving a security deposit exceeding “the equivalent of two months’ rent” for leases entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2024. A holding deposit credited to the security deposit counts toward that figure.
• Keeping the money in the operating account. § 44-7-31 requires an escrow account “established only for that purpose” and written notice to the tenant of its location, and § 44-7-35(a) makes the failure to escrow one of the three conditions that together bar any retention.
• Writing “non-refundable” on the receipt and relying on it. Georgia’s nonrefundable-fee category in § 44-7-30(1) is money paid “under the terms of a residential rental agreement”. A pre-lease receipt is not that agreement, and this page does not say a forfeiture clause in one is enforceable.
• Keeping the money after you yourself back out. Nothing in the article gives a landlord who declines to rent any right to retain a deposit. If the money was a security deposit, § 44-7-35(c) prices the withholding at three times the sum improperly withheld plus attorney’s fees.
• Missing the 30-day return period once a tenancy existed. Under § 44-7-35(b), missing the time periods in §§ 44-7-33 and 44-7-34 forfeits “all the landlord’s rights to withhold any portion of the security deposit”.
• Importing another state’s rule. No other state’s cap, deadline or definition of “tenant” is a Georgia rule. Georgia defines neither “tenant” nor “rental agreement” in the sections read, and this page does not borrow a definition to fill the gap.
• Assuming this page states all of Georgia law on the point. The codified text was not read; §§ 44-7-32, 44-7-36 and 44-7-37 were not fetched; case law was not searched; municipal ordinances were not researched.

No. Georgia has a security-deposit article, and the question is whether its definition reaches money paid before a residential rental agreement exists. Six sections of it were read for this page — O.C.G.A. §§ 44-7-30, 44-7-30.1, 44-7-31, 44-7-33, 44-7-34 and 44-7-35 — from the enacted text of four Acts of the General Assembly: 2007 SB 94, which revised the definitions in § 44-7-30; 2006 HB 1273, which rewrote the escrow section, § 44-7-31; 2018 HB 834, which revised §§ 44-7-33 through 44-7-35 on damage lists, return and remedies; and 2024 HB 404, which added the cap in § 44-7-30.1. Across those four texts, 30,654 characters in all, the word “holding” never appears as a deposit term (its one appearance is “withholding” in § 44-7-35(c)), “prospective” never appears, “reserv” never appears, and “earnest” appears only in a sentence SB 94 struck. Three sections of the article — § 44-7-32 on surety bonds, § 44-7-36 and § 44-7-37 — were not fetched, and no claim about them, including a claim of absence, is made here.

So the honest answer has two halves. Nothing in the four enacted acts read names a holding deposit, a reservation fee or earnest money as a category, and nothing in them says how much one may be, how long a unit may be held, or when the money must come back if no lease follows. And there is a definition of “security deposit” which, once a residential rental agreement exists and the money is held for the tenant under it, captures the money and attaches every duty in the article to it. The rest of this page is about that definition, about the duties that ride on it, and about the space the article leaves open.

Money given by a tenant and held by the landlord on the tenant’s behalf by virtue of a residential rental agreement, expressly including advance rent deposits. § 44-7-30(3), as enacted by 2007 SB 94 with effect from July 1, 2007, verbatim:

“‘Security deposit’ means money or any other form of security given after July 1, 1976, 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 and shall include, but not be limited to, damage deposits, advance rent deposits, and pet deposits. Such term shall not include nonrefundable fees, or money or other consideration which are not to be returned to the tenant under the terms of the residential rental agreement or which were to be applied toward the payment of rent or reimbursement of services or utilities provided to the tenant.”

Read the first sentence as a landlord holding an applicant’s money. Two conditions must be met at once. The money must be given “by a tenant”, and it must be held “by virtue of a residential rental agreement”. Georgia does not define “tenant” in the sections read, and an applicant still waiting on a screening report is not obviously within it. Money the landlord holds while deciding whether to rent is not obviously held by virtue of any agreement. On the words, then, a payment made before any agreement is outside the definition, and the article contains no other provision that reaches it.

Now read the same sentence after a lease is signed and the holding deposit is credited to the security deposit. The payer is a tenant. The money is held by virtue of a residential rental agreement. From that moment the money is a security deposit without any argument, and the cap, the escrow duty, the damage-list duty, the 30-day return rule and the three-times penalty all attach to it. A holding deposit credited to rent instead is less clear: the definition “shall include, but not be limited to … advance rent deposits”, and its second sentence excludes money “which were to be applied toward the payment of rent”. The text does not say which of those a credited holding deposit is, and this page leaves it open.

The second sentence, the exclusions, is worth noticing for what it does not exclude. It takes out “nonrefundable fees” — a defined term, dealt with below — and money “not to be returned to the tenant under the terms of the residential rental agreement” or to be applied to rent, services or utilities. Every exclusion is keyed to the rental agreement itself. Nothing in the sentence carves out money paid before the agreement, and the one sentence that once carved out earnest money is gone.

A contract, lease, or license agreement for the rental or use of real property as a dwelling place — and yes, the definition of a security deposit presupposes one. § 44-7-30(2), verbatim: “‘Residential rental agreement’ means a contract, lease, or license agreement for the rental or use of real property as a dwelling place.”

Three features of that definition bear on a holding deposit. The first is its breadth. A “license agreement” is not a lease; it is a permission to use. By naming it, the General Assembly reached arrangements short of a formal tenancy, and a court asked whether a landlord’s agreement to let an approved applicant move in on a stated date is a “contract … for the rental or use of real property as a dwelling place” has a wide phrase to work with. The second is what the definition does not say. It does not say the agreement must be written, and it does not say it may be oral; it is silent on form. Five other of the seven states compared here — Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi and Vermont — say in terms that a rental agreement may be oral, and this page does not import that into Georgia. The third is that the definition is of the compound term. Georgia defines a residential rental agreement; in the sections read it defines neither “rental agreement” alone nor “tenant”.

Put (2) beside (3) and the question for a Georgia holding deposit reduces to this: when the money was paid, was there a contract, lease or license agreement for the use of the unit as a dwelling, under which the landlord was holding the money for the person who paid it? If there was, the money is a security deposit. If there was not, the article does not reach it. Which description fits a given payment is a question about whether and when an agreement was formed, and the article does not answer it. No Georgia case law was read for this page.

At the latest, when the applicant signs and the money is credited to the security deposit. Possibly earlier, and the statute does not say when. It helps to separate three moments.

The first is the ordinary case. The applicant pays to hold the unit, the lease is signed, the applicant takes possession, and the holding deposit is credited against the security deposit. From that point there is no conditional. The money was given by a tenant and it is held by virtue of a residential rental agreement. § 44-7-30.1’s cap, § 44-7-31’s escrow duty, § 44-7-33’s damage lists, § 44-7-34(a)’s 30-day return and § 44-7-35’s forfeiture and treble-damages provisions apply to it exactly as they apply to any other security deposit in Georgia. A landlord who credits a holding deposit should record that it has been credited, because the amount originally paid and the date are facts the end-of-tenancy accounting under § 44-7-34(a) will need.

The second moment is the one the article leaves open. The applicant pays to hold the unit and no lease is ever signed. Whether the money was ever a security deposit depends on whether, when it was paid, there was already a residential rental agreement — a contract, lease or license agreement for the use of the unit as a dwelling — under which the landlord held it for a tenant. The parties’ words at the moment of payment decide that, and nothing in the article tells anyone how to characterise those words.

The third moment is the one the landlord controls. Because the decisive fact is what the parties had agreed when the money moved, a landlord who writes down at that moment whether an agreement has been reached — “the landlord is holding the unit until [date] while screening is completed; no agreement to rent has yet been made”, or the opposite — has produced the evidence on which the question turns. The article does not require that record. It is recommended here because the article supplies no other way to answer the question it raises.

In Georgia the difference is not the label but the timing and the agreement: a security deposit is money held for a tenant by virtue of a residential rental agreement, and a holding payment is money paid before that agreement exists, which the article does not address. The distinction that matters is drawn by § 44-7-30(3) itself, and it is drawn by reference to an agreement, not to a name.

A security deposit, once it exists, comes with a defined set of consequences. It is capped at the equivalent of two months’ rent. It must sit in a dedicated escrow account the tenant has been told about in writing. It is preceded by a comprehensive list of existing damage. It comes back within 30 days after the landlord obtains possession, less itemised retentions on the grounds § 44-7-34(a) lists. And keeping it wrongfully costs three times the sum improperly withheld plus attorney’s fees. A payment made before any agreement carries none of those consequences by the article’s terms, and carries no others either, because the article says nothing about it.

Two things follow. A landlord cannot take a payment that is in truth a security deposit — money held for a tenant under a signed lease — and escape the article by writing “holding fee” on the receipt; the definition includes advance rent deposits and is “not limited to” its examples. And a landlord cannot take a payment from an applicant before any agreement and claim the article’s retention grounds for keeping it, because the article does not reach that money and confers no such right. The article decides neither what the money is called nor whether it may be kept; it decides only what follows once the money is a security deposit.

The article defines a “nonrefundable fee” only as money paid under the terms of a residential rental agreement, and it says nothing about money paid outside one. § 44-7-30(1), added by 2007 SB 94, verbatim: “‘Nonrefundable fee’ means any money or other consideration paid or given by a tenant to a landlord under the terms of a residential rental agreement which the parties agreed would not be refunded.” And § 44-7-30(3) excludes from the term “security deposit” any “nonrefundable fees, or money or other consideration which are not to be returned to the tenant under the terms of the residential rental agreement”.

Read those two provisions with a holding deposit in mind and the shape is clear. Georgia recognises that a tenant may agree, in the rental agreement, that some money will not come back, and it takes that money out of the security-deposit rules. Both provisions locate the agreement not to refund in the residential rental agreement. A pre-lease receipt marked “non-refundable” is not a residential rental agreement, and the article does not say what effect such a receipt has. It does not say the payment is forfeit; it does not say it is recoverable; it does not mention it.

What this page can say is what it cannot find. It cannot find, anywhere in the sections read, a provision that makes a forfeiture clause in a pre-lease holding record enforceable, and it does not say such a clause is enforceable. It cannot find a provision that bars one either. Whether a reservation payment made with no agreement is recoverable when the applicant withdraws is a question of Georgia contract law, which this page did not research and does not state. The record this page generates treats the deposit as refundable, and where the parties want any other handling it asks them to state the condition on which money would be kept, so that a court is at least reading a term rather than a label. It does not tell them the term will hold.

Georgia sets no figure for a holding deposit as such. If the money is or becomes a security deposit, § 44-7-30.1 caps it at the equivalent of two months’ rent for residential lease agreements entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2024. Both halves of that sentence are needed.

The cap, verbatim from 2024 HB 404: “No landlord shall demand or receive a security deposit in an amount that exceeds the equivalent of two months’ rent.” Section 6 of the same Act provides that it applies to residential lease agreements “entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2024”. Two features deserve notice. The cap is on demanding or receiving, so it is breached at the moment the money is taken, not only when it is kept. And it is dated: a lease entered into before July 1, 2024 and not since renewed is outside it, and this page does not say what, if anything, capped deposits under such a lease.

For a holding deposit the practical rule that survives both readings of § 44-7-30(3) is simple. Take no more to hold a unit than you could lawfully hold as a security deposit, and make sure that the holding deposit plus anything further collected as security at signing does not exceed the equivalent of two months’ rent. A holding deposit above that figure is not reached by § 44-7-30.1 on the reading that puts it outside the article; it becomes a security deposit in excess of the cap on the day it is credited, on the reading that crediting is receipt. A page that prints any other Georgia figure — one month, one and a half, a percentage of rent — has borrowed it from another state.

If it is a security deposit, in an escrow account established only for that purpose, with the tenant told in writing where it is. § 44-7-31, as rewritten by 2006 HB 1273, requires that a security deposit held by a landlord or the landlord’s agent on behalf of a tenant “shall be deposited in an escrow account established only for that purpose in any bank or lending institution subject to regulation by this state or any agency of the United States government”, and that “Tenants shall be informed in writing of the location of the escrow account”. The section opens “Except as provided in Code Section 44-7-32”, the surety-bond alternative, which was not fetched for this page and about which nothing is said.

Read against a holding deposit, the duty is keyed to the same conditional as everything else: it attaches to a security deposit held on behalf of a tenant. But it is the cheapest duty in the article to satisfy in advance. A landlord who puts every holding deposit into the escrow account on receipt and records the account in the holding record has complied on the reading that the money is a security deposit and has lost nothing on the reading that it is not. The cost of not doing so is set by § 44-7-35(a), under which the failure to escrow is one of three conditions which, when all three are present, mean the landlord “shall not be entitled to retain any portion of a security deposit”.

The tenant must be presented with a comprehensive list of existing damage. § 44-7-33(a), as revised by 2018 HB 834: “Prior to tendering a security deposit, the tenant shall be presented with a comprehensive list of any existing damage to the premises”, for the tenant’s permanent retention; the tenant may inspect the premises to check the list “prior to taking occupancy”; both sign it, or the tenant “shall state specifically in writing the items on such list to which he or she dissents and shall sign such statement of dissent”.

This is the one place in the article where the phrase “prior to” attaches to the deposit, and it is written for a tenant, not an applicant. It presupposes that the person tendering the deposit has a premises to inspect and an occupancy to take. The article does not say how that duty maps onto money paid to hold a unit before any lease, and this page does not say either. What it does say is that under § 44-7-35(a) the absence of the move-in list is one of the three conditions that together bar retention, and under § 44-7-35(b) the failure to provide the lists within the time periods in §§ 44-7-33 and 44-7-34 forfeits the landlord’s right to withhold any portion. A landlord who intends a holding deposit to become the security deposit at signing has every reason to present the list before the holding deposit is paid, or at the latest before it is credited.

The move-out side is set by § 44-7-33(b). Within three business days after termination of the lease and vacation of the premises, or surrender and acceptance, whichever occurs first, the landlord inspects and compiles a comprehensive list of damage that is the basis for any charge, with an estimated dollar value; the tenant may inspect the premises and the list within five business days. Neither period is written for someone who never moved in.

The article is silent, and the honest answer has two branches. Nothing in the sections read addresses an applicant who pays to hold a unit and then declines to sign, and nothing addresses an applicant whose application the landlord declines after screening. The word “prospective” does not appear. What happens to the money depends on the same fact as everything else on this page: whether a residential rental agreement existed when it was paid.

If no agreement had been made — the landlord was holding the unit while screening continued, and neither side had committed — then on the words of § 44-7-30(3) the payer was not a tenant and the money was not held by virtue of any agreement. Article 2 does not by its terms govern its return or its retention, and no other Georgia section read for this page does. Whatever the parties agreed about the money in that event is what governs it, and that is a matter of the agreement between them and of Georgia contract law, which this page did not research. The page does not say the landlord may keep it and does not say the landlord must return it; the article says neither. Where the applicant failed the landlord’s own screening, the landlord is the party who declined to proceed, and nothing on this page supports keeping money paid to hold a unit the landlord then refused to rent.

If an agreement had been made — a contract, lease or license agreement for the use of the unit as a dwelling, under which the landlord was holding the money for the person who paid — then the money was a security deposit. What may be retained from a security deposit is governed by § 44-7-34(a), which lists the grounds: nonpayment of rent or late fees, abandonment of the premises, nonpayment of utility charges, repair or cleaning contracted by the tenant with third parties, unpaid pet fees, and actual damages caused by the tenant’s breach “provided that the landlord attempts to mitigate the actual damages”. Whether an applicant who agreed to rent and then withdrew has committed a breach causing actual damages, and what those damages are after mitigation, is a question the section does not answer for this fact pattern; nothing on this page shows that a forfeiture clause in a holding record is one of the listed grounds, and the page does not say it is. What the section does make clear is the shape of any retention: a written statement identifying the exact reasons, accompanied by payment of the difference, within the 30 days § 44-7-34(a) allows — and under § 44-7-35(b) a landlord who misses that period forfeits the right to withhold anything.

The article is silent on this too, and the silence runs entirely against keeping the money. Nothing in the four enacted acts read addresses a landlord who accepts a holding deposit and then rents the unit to someone else, withdraws it from the market, or declines the applicant after all. The article’s only mechanism for money in the landlord’s hands is return: § 44-7-34(a) requires the landlord to “return to the tenant the full security deposit” less itemised retentions on the grounds it lists, and every one of those grounds is a default by the tenant. There is no provision under which a landlord who has changed their mind acquires any right to retain a deposit.

If a residential rental agreement had been formed, the applicant was a tenant and the money was a security deposit. A landlord who backs out and keeps it is withholding a security deposit with no ground in § 44-7-34(a) for doing so, and § 44-7-35(c) sets the price of failing to return what is owed at three times the sum improperly withheld plus reasonable attorney’s fees. Whether the landlord’s withdrawal from the agreement gives the applicant any further remedy beyond return of the deposit is a question of contract, not of Article 2, and was not researched.

If no agreement had been formed, Article 2 does not reach the money by its terms, and the question of return is governed by whatever the parties agreed. A record that commits the landlord to return the deposit in full if the landlord withdraws removes the question. This page recommends that term not because the article requires it but because the article supplies nothing else and the alternative — a landlord keeping an applicant’s money after refusing to rent to them — has no support anywhere in the text.

If it is a security deposit: within 30 days after obtaining possession of the premises. If it is not, the article sets no period at all. § 44-7-34(a), as revised by 2018 HB 834, requires that “Within 30 days after obtaining possession of the premises as provided in subsection (b) of Code Section 44-7-33, a landlord shall return to the tenant the full security deposit”. Where actual cause exists to retain part, the landlord provides a written statement identifying the exact reasons, accompanied by payment of the difference. The landlord is deemed to have complied by mailing the statement and payment to the tenant’s last known address by first-class mail; and “If the letter containing the payment is returned to the landlord undelivered and if the landlord is unable to locate the tenant after reasonable effort”, the payment becomes the landlord’s property 90 days after the date it was mailed. The statute counts in days, and so does this page.

The trigger deserves attention. It runs from the landlord’s obtaining possession as provided in § 44-7-33(b) — termination of the lease and vacation, or surrender and acceptance. That is written for someone who moved in. An applicant who paid to hold a unit and never took possession has neither vacated nor surrendered anything, and the section does not say how its clock runs for them. This page does not supply an answer the text lacks. What it can say is what a landlord risks by waiting: under § 44-7-35(b), the failure to provide the lists and written statements within the periods in §§ 44-7-33 and 44-7-34 “shall work a forfeiture of all the landlord’s rights to withhold any portion of the security deposit or to bring an action against the tenant for damages to the premises”. A landlord uncertain whether the period applies to a particular holding deposit, who returns the money promptly, loses nothing and removes the question.

Only the grounds § 44-7-34(a) lists, never ordinary wear and tear, and only by written statement. The section provides that “No security deposit shall be retained to cover ordinary wear and tear which occurred as a result of the use of the premises for the purposes for which the premises were intended, provided that there was no negligence, carelessness, accident, or abuse of the premises by the tenant or members of his or her household or their invitees or guests”. The section does not define wear and tear further, and this page does not supply examples the text lacks.

The permitted grounds are then set out: “Nothing in this Code section shall preclude the landlord from retaining the security deposit for nonpayment of rent or of fees for late payment, for abandonment of the premises, for nonpayment of utility charges, for repair work or cleaning contracted for by the tenant with third parties, for unpaid pet fees, or for actual damages caused by the tenant’s breach, provided that the landlord attempts to mitigate the actual damages.” Where the reason is damage to the premises, the damage must be listed as provided in § 44-7-33, which is the move-out list compiled within three business days and open to the tenant’s inspection within five. Subsection (b) adds that where a court determines that neither side is entitled to all or part of a deposit, the judge or jury determines an equitable disposition and the judge orders payment accordingly.

For a holding deposit that became a security deposit, these are the only grounds. For a holding deposit that never did, they are not grounds at all — the section confers them on a landlord retaining a security deposit, and a landlord holding money outside the article cannot borrow the list. The article gives that landlord no retention right of any kind; what, if anything, the parties’ own agreement gives is a contract question this page does not answer.

§ 44-7-35 sets three consequences: a bar on retention where three failures coincide, a forfeiture for missing the deadlines, and treble damages plus fees for failing to return what is owed. Each is quoted so the page cannot soften it.

Subsection (a) provides that a landlord “shall not be entitled to retain any portion of a security deposit” if three things are all true: the deposit was not escrowed under § 44-7-31 or bonded under § 44-7-32; and the initial damage list required by § 44-7-33(a) was not presented; and the final damage list required by § 44-7-33(b) was not compiled. The three are joined by “and”; the bar is total but it requires all three failures together.

Subsection (b) attaches to timing alone: the failure to provide each of the lists and written statements within the periods in §§ 44-7-33 and 44-7-34 “shall work a forfeiture of all the landlord’s rights to withhold any portion of the security deposit or to bring an action against the tenant for damages to the premises”. The word is “forfeiture”, and it reaches not only the deposit but the separate action for damages.

Subsection (c) prices the withholding: a landlord who fails to return any part of a security deposit required to be returned “shall be liable to the tenant in the amount of three times the sum improperly withheld plus reasonable attorney’s fees”. The multiple is reduced to the sum withheld only where the landlord “shows by the preponderance of the evidence that the withholding was not intentional and resulted from a bona fide error which occurred in spite of the existence of procedures reasonably designed to avoid such errors”.

Read against a holding deposit, (c) has a particular edge. The usual reason a landlord keeps a holding deposit is that the applicant withdrew and the landlord feels entitled to compensation for the time the unit was off the market. If the deposit was a security deposit — because a residential rental agreement existed when it was paid — then keeping it on a ground § 44-7-34(a) does not list is exactly the withholding (c) addresses, and keeping it deliberately after the applicant asks for it back is the fact pattern least likely to qualify as a bona fide error. The article does not say a holding deposit is a security deposit. It also does not say it is not. A landlord who keeps one is betting on the first half of that sentence and carrying the exposure of the second.

Georgia prescribes no holding period and, in the sections read, no receipt; the parties supply both. Nothing in the sections read says how long a unit may be held for an applicant, how long the applicant has to sign, or what happens when a hold expires, because nothing in those sections addresses a hold at all. Any date in a Georgia holding record is a date the parties chose, and the record should present it as such rather than as a statutory period.

The closest thing to a receipt requirement in the sections read is § 44-7-31’s duty that tenants “shall be informed in writing of the location” of the escrow account, which presupposes a security deposit and a tenant. The article does not otherwise require a written acknowledgment of a deposit. A holding record that states the amount, the date, the method of payment and the account where the money sits does more than the article asks and gives both sides the evidence a dispute would turn on. The absence of such a record is the single most common source of the arguments this page describes, and the article offers no way to reconstruct the facts afterwards.

The amount received, in figures; the date it was received; the method of payment; the unit address; the names of the landlord or agent and of the person who paid; a statement that the money is a deposit to hold the unit off the market until a stated date; a statement, in terms, of whether a residential rental agreement has been made or whether the landlord is holding the unit while screening is completed and no agreement has yet been made; the escrow account in which the money is held; the date the hold ends; what happens to the money on signing, and specifically whether it is credited to the security deposit or to rent, with a check that the combined amount will not exceed the equivalent of two months’ rent; what happens if the applicant withdraws; what happens if the landlord withdraws; the method and address for return; and signatures and dates for both sides.

The item that carries the most weight is the statement of whether an agreement has been made. Every rule in the article attaches through the definition in § 44-7-30(3), and that definition turns on a tenant and a residential rental agreement. The record cannot decide whether an agreement was formed; a court would. But it can fix what the parties said they intended at the moment the money moved, which is the evidence on which that decision would rest.

The item that removes the most risk is the commitment about what happens in each outcome. The article says nothing about an applicant who withdraws and nothing about a landlord who does. A record that says the deposit is credited on signing, returned in full if the landlord withdraws, and handled in a stated way if the applicant withdraws has supplied the terms the article does not. Where the stated handling on the applicant’s withdrawal is anything other than full return, the record should name the condition on which money would be kept, and should not describe the clause as enforceable, because nothing on this page shows that it is.

Two things should not appear. No figure should be printed as a Georgia holding-deposit cap, because there is none; the only Georgia figure is the two-month security-deposit cap, which reaches the money once it is a security deposit. And nothing should suggest the document is a statutory form, because Georgia prescribes none.

All seven states compared here have been read from primary text — California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas and Vermont from their codified publications, Mississippi from the Legislature’s bill documents, and Georgia from the General Assembly’s enacted-act PDFs. None of the seven has a holding-deposit statute. Each has a security-deposit definition, and the definitions reach pre-lease money in different ways. In Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi and Vermont the record establishes a common spine: the deposit is tied to a “tenant”, a tenant is a person entitled under a rental agreement, and a rental agreement may be oral. The record carries no definition of “tenant” for California, and Georgia defines neither “tenant” nor “rental agreement” in the sections read. So the oral-agreement doorway those five states share is not something this page asserts for Georgia.

Georgia ties the money to a tenant and to a residential rental agreement — “a contract, lease, or license agreement” — and includes advance rent deposits by name; it caps at two months’ rent for leases entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2024, returns within 30 days after the landlord obtains possession, and trebles the sum improperly withheld. Kansas ties its definition in § 58-2543(m) to an existing rental agreement three times over — the sum must be “specified in a rental agreement”, deposited “by a tenant”, and forfeitable “under the terms of the rental agreement” — and caps at one month’s periodic rent unfurnished. Iowa defines a rental deposit in § 562A.6(12) as money “to secure performance of a residential rental agreement”, caps at two months’ rent, and returns within 30 days of termination and receipt of a mailing address. Vermont reaches any deposit “however named” but only one “refundable to the tenant”, sets no cap, and returns within 14 days — 60 days for seasonal, non-primary-residence occupancy. Connecticut reaches pre-lease money through “any advance rental payment” in § 47a-21(a)(11), caps at two months’ rent for a tenant under sixty-two and one month for a tenant sixty-two or older, and returns within twenty-one days after termination or fifteen days after receiving the forwarding address, whichever is later. Mississippi is the one state that names pre-lease money and carves it out: § 89-8-21(1) 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”, and sets no cap. California is the one state whose definition names pre-lease money expressly: “security” under Civ. Code § 1950.5(b) 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 by (c)(1) as amended effective January 1, 2026 — subject to the (c)(5) exception, which restores a two-month cap for a small natural-person landlord and is itself removed where the prospective tenant is a service member.

Three things about Georgia deserve notice. Its definition names “advance rent deposits” as an included category. Its residential rental agreement expressly includes a “license agreement”. And in 2007 it deleted an express earnest-money exclusion. None of those features answers the question for money paid before any agreement, and none of the other states’ answers is a Georgia rule. Connecticut’s twenty-one days, Kansas’s one month and Vermont’s no-cap rule are facts about those states.

It is the General Assembly’s own enacted-act text, accepted on the section captions printed in each Act’s body and checked against a control that fails — but it is not the codification, and the page says so. The State’s designated codifier, LexisNexis, serves the O.C.G.A. behind a sign-in wall on every deeper URL, and the codified text was not read. What was read is the enacted text of each section as passed, from the General Assembly’s own document server: 2007 SB 94 for § 44-7-30, 2006 HB 1273 for § 44-7-31, 2018 HB 834 for §§ 44-7-33 through 44-7-35, and 2024 HB 404 for § 44-7-30.1. That is primary law — the Act itself — but it is section text as of the enacting Act, not a current-through codification. Currency rests on the reported amendment histories for each section and on a read of HB 404, which adds § 44-7-30.1 and does not touch the others. Bogus document ids returned HTTP 500 with zero bytes; the real ids returned PDFs carrying captions such as “SECTION 3. Said chapter is further amended by revising Code Section 44-7-30, relating to definitions” in their own bodies. Amendatory Acts print struck deletions inline; the struck text was separated from the enacted text, and the one deletion that matters here — the earnest-money sentence — is described on this page as repealed and never stated as law.

Five things were not researched, and the page says so where each arises: the codified O.C.G.A. text; Georgia case law on when a residential rental agreement is formed and whether a prospective tenant is a “tenant” for these purposes, case law having been searched in no state for these seven states; municipal ordinances; §§ 44-7-32, 44-7-36 and 44-7-37, for which no claim of absence is made; and what the article does with money paid by someone who never becomes a tenant, which the article simply does not address. A page that filled any of those gaps by analogy to a neighbouring state would be inventing Georgia law, and this one does not.

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 Georgia 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. Georgia 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 Georgia landlord-tenant laws sets out the framework the deposit rules sit inside.

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