Free Florida Notice of Intent to Impose Claim on Security Deposit

§ 83.49(3)(a) measures both deposit deadlines from termination of the rental agreement, not from the day the keys came back. Where you do not intend to impose a claim, the deposit must be returned within 15 days after the termination of the rental agreement. Where you do intend to claim, the written notice must go out within 30 days after the termination of the rental agreement. The confusion is understandable: the all-caps disclosure § 83.49(2)(d) makes you hand the tenant at the start of the tenancy describes the same notice as due within 30 days after you move out. When the two dates differ, calendar the earlier one.

§ 83.49(3)(a) is explicit: if the landlord fails to give the required written notice within the 30-day period, he or she forfeits the right to impose a claim upon the security deposit and may not seek a setoff against the deposit, but may file an action for damages after returning the security deposit to the tenant. Read the last clause carefully. The deposit is gone as a source of recovery and has to go back — but the underlying claim for damage or unpaid rent is not extinguished. You would be suing for it rather than deducting it, with the money already out of your hands and the burden of proof squarely on you.

Yes. § 83.49(3)(a) requires “a statement in substantially the following form” and then prescribes it. The prescribed statement gives notice of an intention to impose a claim for damages in a stated amount upon the security deposit, states the reason, identifies itself as sent as required by § 83.49(3), tells the tenant they must object in writing within 15 days after the time they receive the notice or the landlord will be authorized to deduct the claim, and gives the landlord’s address for that objection. “Substantially” tolerates minor rewording. Dropping the objection window, the deadline, or the address to object to is not minor.

Only under a condition most landlords have not met. § 83.49(3)(a) permits written notice by certified mail to the tenant’s last known mailing address, or by e-mail in accordance with § 83.505. E-mail is not free-standing. § 83.505 permits electronic delivery only where the parties have signed an addendum to the rental agreement specifically agreeing to it, have each provided a valid e-mail address for that purpose, and the addendum conspicuously advises that the election is voluntary and may be revoked or the address updated at any time. No signed addendum means no e-mail service of this notice. If you have one, keep it filed with the lease.

§ 83.49(3)(a) directs the notice to the tenant’s last known mailing address, which may be the rental unit itself. There is also a relief valve in § 83.49(5): a tenant who vacates or abandons before the end of the term, or who holds a week-to-week, month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, or year-to-year tenancy, must give at least 7 days’ written notice by certified mail or personal delivery before vacating, and that notice must include the address where the tenant may be reached. Failure to give it relieves the landlord of the notice requirement of § 83.49(3)(a) — though it does not waive the tenant’s right to the deposit itself.

A timely objection stops the automatic deduction. § 83.49(3)(b) provides that unless the tenant objects to the claim or its amount within 15 days after receipt of the notice, the landlord may then deduct the claim and shall remit the balance of the deposit to the tenant within 30 days after the date of the notice of intention. An objection removes that authority, and § 83.49 then sets no further deadline for you. The pressure is in § 83.49(3)(c): the prevailing party in an action to adjudicate the right to the deposit receives court costs plus a reasonable attorney fee, and the court shall advance the cause on the calendar.

Verified negative. Florida requires no pre-move-out inspection and gives the tenant no statutory right to be present at one. Nothing in § 83.49 conditions your claim on a joint walkthrough, on a written inspection report, or on giving the tenant a chance to cure the condition first — several states impose all three, and Florida does not. What § 83.49(3)(a) does require is the reason for imposing the claim, so the evidence still has to exist somewhere. Dated move-in and move-out photographs and the invoice behind each line item are practice rather than law, but they are what a county judge actually looks at.

These are two different duties at two different moments, and the statute keeps them apart. § 83.49(2) is a start-of-tenancy disclosure telling the tenant where the deposit is held and whether interest is owed; it goes in the lease or within 30 days after receipt, and by its own words it does not apply to a landlord who rents fewer than five individual dwelling units. § 83.49(3)(a) is the end-of-tenancy claim notice, and it binds every landlord holding a deposit. Nothing in subsection (3) makes the claim notice contingent on the earlier disclosure, so a missed § 83.49(2) notice is not a reason to skip this one.