Free California Holding Deposit Agreement

A holding deposit is money a prospective tenant pays to take a unit off the market before a lease is signed. California is the state whose definition reaches pre-lease money by breadth rather than by naming it, and the state where the answer therefore sounds simplest — and it is not simple. Civil Code § 1950.5 has no holding-deposit provision. The word “holding” appears in it only in the phrase “a landlord holding the security”. What the section does have is a definition of “security” that opens with “any payment, fee, deposit, or charge” and a cap that applies to security “however denominated”. Those two phrases are why a California holding deposit taken from someone who goes on to sign is security, counted against the one-month cap, and why a lease or rental agreement may not label it nonrefundable. The hinge on which all of that turns is a single phrase in (b): “imposed at the beginning of the tenancy”. Money paid by an applicant who never takes possession is money at the beginning of no tenancy, and the section was searched for that case — “does not take possession”, “never occup”, “prior to occupancy” — and says nothing about it. This page states the conditional, quotes the text it rests on, and says where the text stops.

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. California prescribes no holding-deposit form and has no holding-deposit provision, so a document captioned as though it satisfied a statute would claim something § 1950.5 does not say. What it carries is the set of facts the statute’s definition turns on: the amount, the date paid, what the money is “to be used for”, whether it is refundable, whether it is credited against security or rent at signing, the date the unit is held until, and what happens if either side does not proceed. Three limits belong on the page rather than in the form. First, the record this page is built on extracted § 1950.5(b), (c)(1), (c)(5), (c)(6) and (n), together with § 1950.6(k) and § 1671(c)(2) and (d), and the return deadline in § 1950.5(h)(1), which runs from the tenant vacating. It did not extract the itemisation mechanics, the bad-faith penalty or any receipt or disclosure duty, and none of those is stated here. Second, the record did not extract a definition of “tenant” or “tenancy”, so where the beginning of a tenancy falls — and in particular whether an oral agreement to rent is enough — is not something this page can tell you for California; that doorway is established in the record for Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi (§ 89-8-7(l)) and Vermont from their own definitions, and was not established for California. Third, case law was searched in no state, and the question of whether a prospective tenant is a “tenant” is the kind of question courts answer. This page addresses the state statute; local ordinances were not researched.

• The amount, in figures, and the monthly rent it is measured against — because § 1950.5(c)(1) caps security “however denominated” at one month’s rent, and the record has to show the two numbers side by side.
• The date the money was received and the form it took — the definition in (b) turns on when a charge is “imposed”, and (c)(6) turns on whether it was collected before or after July 1, 2024.
• What the money is to be used for, in the words of the form: to hold the unit off the market until a named date. (b) reaches money “used or to be used for any purpose”; the record states the purpose.
• What it becomes at signing — credited to the security deposit, credited to the first month’s rent, or returned. (c)(1) treats first-month rent and security differently, and the record must say which pot the money enters.
• The total security after crediting, shown as a figure, so that the record demonstrates the combined amount is within one month’s rent — or within two under (c)(5), with the facts that make (c)(5) available written down.
• The word “refundable”, and no clause calling any part of it nonrefundable. § 1950.5(n) bars a lease or rental agreement from “characterizing any security as ‘nonrefundable.’”
• What happens if the landlord does not proceed — return in full, with the date by which it will be returned. The statute does not set that date for this situation, so the record does.
• What happens if the applicant does not proceed, stated plainly. § 1950.5 was searched for this case and does not address it; the record gives no statutory basis for retaining any of it, and if a form retains anything it does so on contract alone — this page does not say that is lawful. § 1671 limits liquidated damages in a dwelling lease and is not asserted here to reach a holding agreement.
• A separate line for any application screening fee, labelled as a § 1950.6 fee, so the record itself shows the statutory line between a fee that “shall not be considered ‘security’” and a deposit that is.
• Signatures and dates for both sides, and a note of anything said orally about renting before the document was signed — because the open question in all seven is when an agreement was formed, and the record is the only evidence of that a landlord will have.

• Quoting the cap as two months. § 1950.5(c)(1) says “one month’s rent”. Two months for unfurnished and three for furnished is pre-2024 law, and (c)(5)’s two-month exception is confined to a natural-person or all-natural-person-LLC landlord with no more than two properties and four units, and not where the prospective tenant is a service member.
• Treating the holding deposit as an allowance on top of the security deposit. The cap reaches security “however denominated”. Holding deposit plus security deposit is one figure against one month.
• Calling it nonrefundable. (n) forbids a lease or rental agreement from “characterizing any security as ‘nonrefundable’”, and a holding deposit that becomes security is security.
• Calling it a screening fee. § 1950.6(k) takes the application screening fee out of “security”; a refundable deposit that holds a unit is not a screening fee, and relabelling does not move it.
• Saying California does not regulate holding deposits. A definition that opens with “any payment, fee, deposit, or charge” is not silence. The reach is conditional on a tenancy beginning, not absent.
• Saying the cap applies to every holding deposit. The definition reaches money “imposed at the beginning of the tenancy”. For an applicant who never takes possession, the section says nothing, and this page does not pretend it does.
• Importing a return deadline for the walk-away case. § 1950.5(h)(1) runs “21 calendar days after the tenant has vacated the premises” — from vacating. The section says nothing about a deadline where the tenant never took possession, the itemisation and penalty subsections were not read for this page, and a figure from a neighbouring state is a fabricated California rule.
• Assuming a phone call is or is not a tenancy. The record this page is built on did not extract a definition of “tenant” or “tenancy” from § 1950.5, and this page does not say where the beginning of a tenancy is.
• Writing a forfeiture clause as though it were free of scrutiny. § 1671(c)(2) and (d) void liquidated-damages clauses in a dwelling lease except a presumed-damages amount where actual damage is “impracticable or extremely difficult to fix”; whether that reaches a holding agreement is not answered, and the risk sits there.
• Applying the one-month cap to security taken before July 1, 2024. (c)(6) provides that the subdivision “shall not apply to a security collected or demanded by the landlord before July 1, 2024.”

No. None of the seven states compared here has one, and California is no exception. Civil Code § 1950.5 is a security-deposit statute. The word “holding” appears in it only in the phrase “a landlord holding the security”, describing the landlord, not the deposit; it does not name a “holding deposit” as a category. The section was searched for “does not take possession”, “never occup” and “prior to occupancy”, and none of those phrases is in it.

That is the first fact and it shapes everything after it. A page that gives you a “California holding deposit rule” is giving you something the Legislature did not write. What the Legislature did write is a definition of “security” broad enough that a holding deposit falls into it whenever the condition in that definition is met. The question for a California landlord is therefore never “what is the holding-deposit rule?” It is “is this money security?” — and the answer depends on a phrase this page comes back to repeatedly.

Any payment, fee, deposit or charge imposed at the beginning of the tenancy. The definition, verbatim:

“As used in this section, ‘security’ means any payment, fee, deposit, or charge, including, but not limited to, any payment, fee, deposit, or charge, except as provided in Section 1950.6, that is imposed at the beginning of the tenancy to be used to reimburse the landlord for costs associated with processing a new tenant or that is imposed as an advance payment of rent, used or to be used for any purpose…”

Four features of that sentence decide the holding-deposit question, and they pull in different directions.

“Any payment, fee, deposit, or charge.” The definition is not a list of named deposits. It begins with the widest available words and then repeats them. Compare the other six. Iowa’s definition is “a deposit of money to secure performance of a residential rental agreement”. Kansas requires “any sum of money specified in a rental agreement … to be deposited with a landlord by a tenant”. Mississippi’s is money “the primary function of which is to secure the performance of a rental agreement”. Each of those is keyed to a rental agreement that already exists. California’s is keyed to nothing except the fact of a payment and its timing.

“Including, but not limited to.” The examples that follow — a charge “to reimburse the landlord for costs associated with processing a new tenant”, an “advance payment of rent” — are illustrations, not boundaries. A holding deposit is neither of those things exactly, and that does not matter, because the definition says it is not limited to them.

“Except as provided in Section 1950.6.” The carve-out the record extracted is the application screening fee. § 1950.6(k) completes the thought: that fee “shall not be considered ‘security’ as that term is used in Section 1950.5”. So California draws a statutory line between a pre-lease fee and a pre-lease deposit, and puts the fee on one side and everything else on the other.

“Imposed at the beginning of the tenancy.” This is the hinge. In the portion of (b) the record quotes, the definition says “at the beginning of the tenancy”, which presupposes that a tenancy begins. A holding deposit taken from a person who then signs and moves in was imposed at the beginning of that person’s tenancy, and it is security. A holding deposit taken from a person who never becomes a tenant was imposed at the beginning of nothing — and the section does not say what it is.

Conditionally, and the condition is whether a tenancy begins. This is the central finding of all seven, stated for California, and it has to be stated as a conditional because the text supports nothing flatter.

Take the case where the applicant signs. The holding deposit was a “deposit”; it was imposed at the beginning of a tenancy that began; it was “to be used for” a purpose — holding the unit, then typically crediting against security or rent. Every element of (b) is present. It is security. That means (c)(1) caps it “however denominated”, (n) forbids the lease or rental agreement from calling it nonrefundable, and (h)(1)’s return clock — “No later than 21 calendar days after the tenant has vacated the premises” — runs on it when that tenant vacates. Whatever else § 1950.5 does to security — the itemisation mechanics and the bad-faith penalty, which this page does not state because they were not extracted — it does to this money too.

Now take the case where the applicant does not sign. The money was a deposit. It was imposed. But was it imposed “at the beginning of the tenancy”, when no tenancy ever began? The record this page is built on searched § 1950.5 for that situation — for “does not take possession”, for “never occup”, for “prior to occupancy” — and found none of those phrases. The section does not address a person who pays and never takes possession. That is recorded as an open item, and this page reports it as one.

Between those two cases sits the question all seven turn on: when does a tenancy begin? In Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi (§ 89-8-7(l)) and Vermont the record answers part of that from the definitions — a “tenant” is a person entitled under a rental agreement, and a rental agreement may be oral, so an oral agreement to rent may make an applicant a tenant. For California, the record did not extract any definition of “tenant” or “tenancy” from § 1950.5, and did not research whether an oral agreement to rent begins a tenancy under California law. So this page does not tell a California landlord that a phone call creates a tenancy, and does not tell them that it does not. It tells them that the statute puts the line at “the beginning of the tenancy”, and that where that line falls in a given case is a question of when an agreement was formed — a question courts answer, and one this record did not research in any state.

Two wrong statements are worth naming so they can be avoided. “Holding deposits are unregulated in California” is wrong: a definition that opens with “any payment, fee, deposit, or charge” and a cap that reaches security “however denominated” regulate a holding deposit whenever a tenancy begins. “The security-deposit cap applies to holding deposits in California” is also wrong as a flat statement: it applies where the money is security, and the text does not make it security where no tenancy begins. The honest sentence is the conditional one.

If it is security, it counts toward one month’s rent — and it is not a second pot. The cap, § 1950.5(c)(1), verbatim:

“Except as provided in paragraph (2), (3), or (5), a landlord shall not demand or receive security, however denominated, in an amount or value in excess of an amount equal to one month’s rent, in addition to any rent for the first month paid on or before initial occupancy.”

One month. Not two for an unfurnished unit and three for a furnished one. Those figures were California law before 2024; the current section, as amended by Stats. 2025, Ch. 340 (AB 414) and effective January 1, 2026, says one month. A landlord working from an older summary will take too much.

“However denominated.” This phrase is in the cap itself. The cap does not measure the amount labelled “security deposit”; it measures security, whatever it is called. A holding deposit that is security is inside the month. If a landlord takes a holding deposit and then, at signing, takes a further security deposit equal to a full month’s rent, the combined security exceeds the cap unless the holding deposit is credited against it — unless (c)(5) applies to the landlord and the applicant is not a service member. Crediting the holding deposit to the security deposit or the first month’s rent at signing is the step that keeps the figure inside the cap, and the record should show the arithmetic.

“In addition to any rent for the first month paid on or before initial occupancy.” First month’s rent is outside the cap. On that phrase a holding deposit credited to first month’s rent at signing would not count against the month of security — but the section does not resolve the point, because the definition in (b) reaches money “imposed as an advance payment of rent” too, so a holding deposit does not escape being security merely by being destined for rent. The effect is on the arithmetic, not the characterisation.

The (c)(5) exception. A two-month cap survives for a landlord who is “a natural person or a limited liability company in which all members are natural persons” and who “owns no more than two residential rental properties that collectively include no more than four dwelling units”. Both conditions must be met. And (c)(5)(B) removes even that exception where the prospective tenant is a service member. A landlord relying on (c)(5) should write the qualifying facts into the record.

The (c)(6) cut-off. Verbatim: “This subdivision shall not apply to a security collected or demanded by the landlord before July 1, 2024.” The one-month cap does not reach security collected before that date. For a holding deposit that is a practical footnote — a holding deposit is by nature recent — but the date is in the statute and belongs on the page.

Paragraphs (2) and (3). (c)(1) opens “Except as provided in paragraph (2), (3), or (5)”. Paragraphs (2) and (3) were not extracted for the record this page is built on, and this page does not describe them.

The statute draws the line itself, and it draws it between a fee and security. § 1950.5(b) defines security as every “payment, fee, deposit, or charge” imposed at the beginning of the tenancy “except as provided in Section 1950.6”. § 1950.6 is the application screening fee statute, and its subdivision (k) provides that the screening fee “shall not be considered ‘security’ as that term is used in Section 1950.5”.

So California has two categories of pre-lease money. The first is the application screening fee under § 1950.6, which is not security, and whose own rules — amount, receipt, refund — were not read for this page and are not stated here. The second is everything else, which is security whenever it is imposed at the beginning of a tenancy. A refundable holding deposit is not a screening fee. It is not charged to screen; it is paid to hold. It sits in the second category.

The practical consequence is that relabelling does not work. A landlord who takes a holding deposit and calls it a “screening fee” has not moved it into § 1950.6; the cap in (c)(1) reaches security “however denominated”, and the definition in (b) reaches “any payment, fee, deposit, or charge” — the word “fee” is in the definition of security. The fee the record shows outside security is the one § 1950.6 actually governs. A holding deposit record that shows any screening fee on its own line, labelled as a § 1950.6 fee, keeps the two categories visibly apart.

Not once it is security, and the statute says so in terms. § 1950.5(n), verbatim: “A lease or rental agreement shall not contain a provision characterizing any security as ‘nonrefundable.’”

Read what that reaches and what it does not. It reaches “any security”, so a holding deposit that becomes security cannot be characterised as nonrefundable in the lease or rental agreement. The typical clause — “the holding deposit is nonrefundable and will be forfeited if the applicant does not sign” — is exactly a provision characterising a deposit as nonrefundable. Where that deposit is security, (n) forbids it in the lease or rental agreement.

What (n) does not say is whether a stand-alone holding-deposit agreement, signed before any lease, is itself a “lease or rental agreement” for this purpose. The record this page is built on did not extract a definition of the phrase, and this page does not assert an answer. But the point is narrower than it looks. The lease that follows will contain the security provisions, and where the holding deposit is credited to security, the lease cannot characterise it as nonrefundable. A holding agreement that says one thing and a lease that must say another is a document set that contradicts itself, and the record should be drafted so it does not.

There is a second provision in the record that bears on forfeiture, and it is recorded with a caveat that this page repeats. § 1671(c)(2) and (d) void liquidated-damages clauses in a dwelling lease except a presumed-damages amount where actual damage is “impracticable or extremely difficult to fix”. A forfeiture clause in a holding agreement is a liquidated-damages clause by function: it fixes in advance what the landlord keeps if the applicant does not proceed. But § 1671 never mentions a holding deposit, and does not say whether a pre-lease holding agreement is a “lease”. This page records that § 1671 is where a forfeiture clause would be tested if it is tested, and does not assert that it applies.

§ 1950.5 does not say. This is the case the record marks open for California, and the page states it plainly rather than answering it from somewhere else.

What the text does contain is this. The definition of security is money “imposed at the beginning of the tenancy”. Whether an applicant who pays a holding deposit, then declines to sign and never takes possession, has begun a tenancy — because the parties had agreed to rent, and a tenancy in some sense began before the applicant abandoned it — is the open question, and the section’s text does not resolve it. The record searched the section for the situation of a tenant who pays and never takes possession, using “does not take possession”, “never occup” and “prior to occupancy”, and none of those phrases is there.

The one return deadline the record found, (h)(1), runs from the tenant having “vacated the premises”; the section says nothing about a deadline where the tenant never took possession. The measure of what a landlord may retain and the penalty for retaining it sit in subsections this record did not extract, so this page does not state them and does not say whether they reach the walk-away applicant.

So a California landlord facing a walk-away has a statute that is silent and a document that is not. The document is the holding deposit record, and it is the only text that speaks to this case, subject to two things the statute does say. First, if the money was security — if a tenancy is found to have begun — then (n)’s bar on characterising security as nonrefundable is in play and the cap in (c)(1) measures it. Second, any clause fixing the amount kept in advance is a liquidated-damages clause, and § 1671(c)(2) and (d) limit such clauses in a dwelling lease to a presumed-damages amount where actual damage is “impracticable or extremely difficult to fix” — if a holding agreement is a lease for that purpose, which the text does not say. The record gives no statutory basis for retaining any of it; if a form retains anything, it does so on contract alone, and this page does not say that is lawful.

This page does not tell you the applicant forfeits. It does not tell you the applicant recovers. It tells you the statute does not decide, and that the document you write is what you will be left with.

The statute is silent on this case too, and the silence runs the same way. A landlord who takes a holding deposit and then declines to proceed — rents to someone else, withdraws the unit, fails the applicant after taking the money — has ensured that no tenancy begins. On the same reading as the walk-away, the money was imposed at the beginning of no tenancy, and § 1950.5 does not address it.

What the text does say is limited and indirect. The section defines security as money “used or to be used for any purpose” and caps it “however denominated”; it forbids a lease or rental agreement from characterising security as nonrefundable; and the three searches recorded for the never-took-possession case found nothing. The one return deadline in the record, (h)(1), runs from the tenant having vacated, and the section says nothing about a deadline where the tenant never took possession; the penalty subsections were not extracted. If a court found that a tenancy had begun when the deposit was taken, (h)(1) and the penalty provisions of § 1950.5 — the latter not extracted and not stated here — would be the ones a tenant would look to. If no tenancy began, the applicant’s remedy is on the document and on general law this page has not researched.

The drafting answer is the same as for the walk-away, in mirror image. The record should say that if the landlord does not proceed, the deposit is returned in full, and by when. The statute does not require that sentence for this fact pattern. It is there because a landlord who kept a holding deposit after refusing to rent would be holding money paid for a purpose that the landlord alone defeated, on a statute that reaches “any payment, fee, deposit, or charge” “imposed at the beginning of the tenancy” and forbids a lease or rental agreement from calling any of it nonrefundable. Whether that money was security is the open question; the record should not leave the landlord to argue it either way.

What the record does not need to contain, and should not contain, is a citation to a holding-deposit statute, because there is none; a return deadline attributed to § 1950.5 for the walk-away case, because the section does not set one; or a cap figure other than one month, or two under (c)(5), because those are the figures in the text.

Several things, and each of them is a place this page stops rather than guesses.

Whether § 1950.5 addresses a person who pays and never takes possession. Searched and not found. This is the central open item, and it is why the page’s answer is a conditional.

The itemisation mechanics and the bad-faith penalty. These subsections of § 1950.5 were not extracted for the record. A California landlord will find them in the section; this page does not state their terms. The return deadline was extracted — (h)(1), “No later than 21 calendar days after the tenant has vacated the premises” — and it runs from vacating; whether any deadline applies where the tenant never took possession is not answered by the section.

Paragraphs (c)(2) and (c)(3). Named in (c)(1) as exceptions to the cap; not extracted; not described here.

Any definition of “tenant” or “tenancy”. The record extracted none from § 1950.5. The extracted text speaks of “the beginning of the tenancy” and of “processing a new tenant”; whether the section defines either term was not verified.

Whether an oral agreement to rent begins a tenancy. Established in the record for Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi (§ 89-8-7(l)) and Vermont from their definitions of “rental agreement”; not established for California; not asserted here.

Whether § 1671 reaches a holding agreement. Recorded, with the express caveat that § 1671 never mentions a holding deposit and does not say whether a pre-lease holding agreement is a “lease”.

The application screening fee’s own rules. Only § 1950.6(k) was extracted — the sentence that keeps the fee out of “security”. Nothing else about that fee is stated here.

Case law and local ordinances. Case law was searched in no state. Municipal ordinances were not researched.

All seven states compared here were 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 whole question across the seven is how far that definition reaches toward money paid before a lease exists. They differ sharply, and the differences are in the words.

California reaches furthest by breadth. “Any payment, fee, deposit, or charge”, “imposed at the beginning of the tenancy”, capped “however denominated” at one month’s rent. The carve-out the record extracted is the § 1950.6 screening fee. The reach stops at “the beginning of the tenancy”, and the section does not say what happens to money where no tenancy begins.

Vermont reaches by label. § 4461(a): “A security deposit is any advance, deposit, or prepaid rent, however named, which is refundable to the tenant at the termination or expiration of the tenancy.” “However named” does what California’s “however denominated” does — but “refundable to the tenant at the termination … of the tenancy” presupposes a tenancy, exactly as California’s “beginning of the tenancy” does. Vermont sets no cap. Money paid by someone who never becomes a tenant is not answered by § 4461.

Connecticut reaches through “advance rental payment”. § 47a-21(a)(11): “‘Security deposit’ means any advance rental payment, or any installment payment collected pursuant to section 47a-22a, except an advance payment for the first month’s rent or a deposit for a key or any special equipment.” Cap: two months’ rent for a tenant under sixty-two, one month for a tenant sixty-two or older. A “tenant” is a person entitled under a rental agreement, and a rental agreement includes oral ones.

Iowa ties the deposit to an agreement. § 562A.6(12): “‘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.” Cap: two months’ rent. A rental agreement may be oral, so the deposit can be characterised as securing an oral agreement made when the money changed hands — or as securing nothing, if no agreement existed. The text does not resolve which.

Kansas is the cleanest “no” on its face. § 58-2543(m) requires a sum “specified in a rental agreement”, deposited “by a tenant”, forfeitable “under the terms of the rental agreement” — tied to an existing agreement three times. Cap: one month’s periodic rent unfurnished. The only doorway is that a rental agreement may be oral.

Mississippi names the category and excludes it. § 89-8-21(1) governs money that secures 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”. A holding deposit is money paid to secure execution — the signing — and the clause describes it exactly. No cap on amount anywhere in the Act. Mississippi is neither “silent” nor “regulating”; it addresses holding deposits by exclusion.

Georgia, by contrast, was read from enacted-act PDFs rather than the codified O.C.G.A. — the General Assembly’s own documents — and the record 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.

Where California sits in that set is now clear. Its definition never names pre-lease money — it reaches it by breadth — and, with Kansas, it has the lowest general cap of any of the seven states that sets one. None of the other six definitions the record quotes speaks of “processing a new tenant” — a phrase about the start of a tenancy rather than its performance. And it shares with Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Vermont and Georgia the same unresolved line: a definition that presupposes a tenancy, and no text saying what happens to money where none begins.

Because it is the phrase that stops a landlord from drafting around the cap. The words are in (c)(1): “a landlord shall not demand or receive security, however denominated”. A rule that capped “the security deposit” could be avoided by taking a security deposit of one month and a “holding deposit”, a “cleaning deposit” or a “move-in fee” on top. A rule that caps security “however denominated” measures all of them together, and (b)’s “any payment, fee, deposit, or charge” makes sure they are all security to begin with.

For a holding deposit specifically this means two things. First, the holding deposit is not an allowance in its own right. It has no separate cap, because it has no separate category; it is security or it is nothing the section addresses. Second, crediting the holding deposit to the security deposit at signing is the mechanism by which the combined figure stays within one month. Once the applicant is the tenant, a landlord who holds a holding deposit and a full month of security side by side has demanded and received security above the cap — unless (c)(5) applies to that landlord and the tenant is not a service member — and the label on the first sum does not help.

The phrase also explains why this page does not say California is “silent” on holding deposits. A statute that reaches money “however denominated” has reached the holding deposit by refusing to care what it is called. What the statute has not done is say what that money is where the tenancy it was imposed at the beginning of never begins. Breadth of definition and silence on the walk-away case are both true of the same section, and the page carries both.

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

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