Free Kansas Holding Deposit Agreement

A holding deposit is money a prospective tenant pays to take a unit off the market before a lease is signed. Neither of the Kansas sections read (K.S.A. 58-2543, 58-2550) uses that phrase or regulates that money by name. What Kansas has is a security-deposit section, K.S.A. 58-2550, captioned “Security deposits; amounts; retention; return; damages for noncompliance.”, and a definitions section, K.S.A. 58-2543, that tells you what a “security deposit”, a “tenant” and a “rental agreement” are. The entire legal question for a Kansas holding deposit is whether those definitions reach money paid before a rental agreement exists. On the literal words they do not: a security deposit is a sum “specified in a rental agreement” and deposited “by a tenant”, and a tenant is someone “entitled under a rental agreement to occupy”. But a rental agreement in Kansas “means all agreements, written or oral”, so the moment a landlord and an applicant agree to rent — whether or not anyone has signed — the money may cross into the statute and pick up a cap, a return deadline and a penalty. The statute does not say when that moment arrives. This page sets out the words, states what follows on each side of the line, and gives you a record designed to show which side you were on.

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 Kansas Holding Deposit Agreement — Fillable PDF explained

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The generator above produces a holding deposit record, not a statutory form. Kansas prescribes no holding-deposit form in the sections read (K.S.A. 58-2543, 58-2550); a document captioned as though it satisfied one would claim something neither K.S.A. 58-2543 nor K.S.A. 58-2550 says. What the record does is fix the facts the statute turns on. It states whether a rental agreement has or has not been formed, because that is the fact that decides whether the money is a “security deposit” under (m) and whether the payer is a “tenant” under (o). It states what happens to the money if either side withdraws, while noting that, if the money is a security deposit, what may be retained is governed by § 58-2550(b) and not by the record. It states what the money becomes if a lease is signed, so that the amount can be checked against the cap in § 58-2550(a). And it records the dates — payment, decision, return — because (b) counts days and (c) prices what is wrongfully withheld. Three limits belong on the page rather than in the form. This page addresses the state sections named above and nothing else in Kansas law; whether Kansas has any provision on application fees was not researched, and nothing on interest, receipts or escrow was extracted for Kansas, so none is asserted. Case law was not searched, and the one decision the publisher’s annotation cites as construing (m), Clark v. Walker, 225 Kan. 359, 590 P.2d 1043, was not read. And municipal ordinances were not researched; this page states the statute only.

• The names of the landlord and the applicant, and the address of the unit. K.S.A. 58-2543(m) speaks of a sum deposited “with a landlord by a tenant” for “a dwelling unit”; the record identifies all three.
• The amount paid, the date, and the method of payment. If the money turns out to be a security deposit, § 58-2550(a) caps it and (b) counts days; the record fixes the figures those rules are measured against.
• A statement whether a rental agreement has or has not been formed. This is the fact (m) and (o) turn on, and (k) lets an agreement be oral, so the record should say in terms that no agreement exists yet — or that one does.
• The period for which the unit will be held, with a date on which the hold ends if no lease has been signed. Kansas prescribes none; the parties supply it.
• What the money becomes if a lease is signed — applied to the security deposit specified in the rental agreement, applied to rent, or returned. Once applied to the security deposit it is a sum “specified in a rental agreement” and every rule in § 58-2550 applies.
• What happens if the applicant withdraws, stated in terms. If the money is a security deposit, what may be retained is governed by § 58-2550(b) — accrued rent, damages for noncompliance with K.S.A. 58-2555 or the rental agreement, and other legally allowable charges under the rental agreement — and nothing on this page shows a holding-record clause is one of those grounds; a bare “non-refundable” label states no term at all.
• What happens if the landlord withdraws. § 58-2550 is silent on a landlord who takes money and then declines to rent; the record should say the money is returned in full and when.
• A combined-amount check against § 58-2550(a): holding deposit plus any further security deposit not to exceed one month’s periodic rent unfurnished, one and one-half months furnished, plus one-half month for pets.
• Nothing implying a Kansas holding-deposit statute, form or deadline, because there is none in the sections read. Any deadline in the record is one the parties chose.
• Signatures of both parties and a copy for each, with a note of the date any money was returned and how. The record of return is the answer to a claim under (c).

• Telling yourself a holding deposit is “unregulated” in Kansas. K.S.A. 58-2543(k) lets a rental agreement be oral. If you had agreed to rent when the money was paid, the payer may have been a “tenant” under (o) and the money a security deposit under (m), with every rule in § 58-2550 attached.
• Telling yourself the one-month cap applies to a holding deposit. It applies to a “security deposit”, which (m) defines as a sum “specified in a rental agreement” deposited “by a tenant”. Money paid by an applicant before any agreement is not that, on the text. Neither absolute statement is true; the conditional is.
• Taking a holding deposit that exceeds § 58-2550(a) on the theory that the cap does not reach it. If the money becomes the security deposit on signing, it is capped at one month’s periodic rent unfurnished, one and one-half months furnished, plus one-half month for pets, and a sum already above that is already a problem.
• Writing “non-refundable” on the receipt and nothing else. (m) contemplates forfeiture “under the terms of the rental agreement upon the occurrence or breach of conditions specified therein”. A label specifies no occurrence and no condition.
• Agreeing the unit, the rent and the move-in date by phone and then treating the money as a mere reservation. That conversation is the fact pattern in which an oral rental agreement may exist under (k). The text does not say it does; it does not say it does not.
• Reading “condition precedent to the occupancy” as a doorway for applicants. It is timing language about move-in. The sum still has to be specified in a rental agreement and deposited by a tenant.
• Reading “however denominated” as though it reached timing. It defeats a label; it does not turn an applicant into a tenant.
• Keeping money after you yourself back out. § 58-2550 says nothing about a landlord who declines to rent after taking a deposit. If the money is a security deposit, (c) gives the tenant the portion due plus damages of 1½ the amount wrongfully withheld. If it is not, you are in contract law this page does not state. Return it.
• Importing another state’s rule. In the sections read, Kansas sets no cap on a holding deposit as such, prescribes no holding-deposit form, and names no return deadline for money paid by someone who never became a tenant. A figure from a neighbouring state is a fabricated Kansas rule.
• Assuming this page states all of Kansas law on the point. Case law was not searched, Clark v. Walker was not read, municipal ordinances were not researched, and whether Kansas has an application-fee provision was not checked.

Not in the sections read (K.S.A. 58-2543, 58-2550). Kansas has a security-deposit section, and the whole question is whether its definition reaches money paid before a rental agreement exists. The operative section is K.S.A. 58-2550, captioned in its own body “Security deposits; amounts; retention; return; damages for noncompliance.” Its history line runs L. 1975 ch. 290 § 11; 1978 ch. 216 § 1; 1997 ch. 68 § 1, so the text last changed in 1997. The words that would tell you it addresses a holding deposit are not in it. The section never uses “prospective”, “applicant” or any pre-lease language; a separate search for “prospective”, “applicant”, “holding” and “reservation” returned zero hits. Every operative rule in it is keyed to “the tenant” and to “termination of the tenancy”.

That silence is not the end of the enquiry, because § 58-2550 does not define its own terms. The definitions live in K.S.A. 58-2543, captioned “58-2543. Definitions.”, with a history of L. 1975 ch. 290 § 4 and L. 1991 ch. 33 § 33. Three of those definitions decide the holding-deposit question between them: (m) “security deposit”, (o) “tenant”, and (k) “rental agreement”. If a holding deposit satisfies (m), the cap, the return deadline and the penalty in § 58-2550 all attach to it. If it does not, they do not, and a page that applies them has invented a Kansas rule.

So the honest answer to “does Kansas have a holding deposit law?” has two halves. There is no statute that names a holding deposit. There is a definition of “security deposit” that may or may not capture one depending on a fact the definition does not resolve. The rest of this page is about that fact.

A sum specified in a rental agreement, deposited by a tenant, forfeitable under the agreement’s terms. K.S.A. 58-2543(m), verbatim:

“‘Security deposit’ means any sum of money specified in a rental agreement, however denominated, to be deposited with a landlord by a tenant as a condition precedent to the occupancy of a dwelling unit, which sum of money, or any part thereof, may be forfeited by the tenant under the terms of the rental agreement upon the occurrence or breach of conditions specified therein.”

The definition refers to an existing rental agreement three separate times, and each reference does independent work. The sum must be one “specified in a rental agreement” — so the agreement has to exist and has to specify it. The sum is deposited “by a tenant” — and (o), set out in the next section, makes a tenant someone entitled under a rental agreement. And the forfeiture that the definition contemplates is “under the terms of the rental agreement upon the occurrence or breach of conditions specified therein” — the conditions are in the agreement, not in a receipt or a listing.

Two phrases in (m) can be misread in a landlord’s favour or against it, and both deserve a sentence. “However denominated” is genuinely broad: a landlord cannot take a security deposit out of the statute by calling it a “move-in fee” or a “holding deposit”. But it operates on a sum that already satisfies the rest of the definition. It reaches labels, not timing, and it does not turn an applicant into a tenant. “As a condition precedent to the occupancy of a dwelling unit” is sometimes read as though it invited pre-lease money in, because a holding deposit is also paid before occupancy. It is timing language about when the money must be in the landlord’s hands relative to move-in — before it — and it describes an ordinary security deposit paid at lease signing exactly. It does not dispense with the requirement that the sum be specified in a rental agreement and deposited by a tenant.

On its face, then, (m) is the cleanest “no” of the seven to the question whether money paid by a mere applicant is a security deposit. What keeps the question open is not (m). It is the definition of the agreement (m) depends on.

A tenant is a person entitled under a rental agreement to occupy, and a rental agreement includes an oral one. K.S.A. 58-2543(o): “‘Tenant’ means a person entitled under a rental agreement to occupy a dwelling unit to the exclusion of others”. And K.S.A. 58-2543(k): “‘Rental agreement’ means all agreements, written or oral…”.

Put the two beside (m) and the structure of the problem is visible. A security deposit is deposited by a tenant. A tenant is someone entitled under a rental agreement. A rental agreement may be oral. So the question “is this holding deposit a security deposit?” reduces, on the text, to “had the landlord and the applicant made an agreement — written or oral — under which the applicant was entitled to occupy, at the time the money was paid?”

An applicant who has viewed the unit and paid to have it held while the landlord runs a screening report has not made that agreement. The landlord has not yet decided to rent to them; they are entitled under nothing. On the words of (o), they are not a tenant, and on the words of (m), their money is not specified in any rental agreement. An applicant whose application has been approved, who has agreed the rent and the move-in date with the landlord by phone, and who then pays “to hold the unit until we sign on Friday” is in a different position. Nothing in (k) requires the agreement to be signed or written. Whether that conversation is an “agreement” under which the applicant is “entitled” to occupy is a question about contract formation, and the text of § 58-2543 does not answer it.

This page did not search Kansas case law. The publisher’s own annotation to (m) cites Clark v. Walker, 225 Kan. 359, 590 P.2d 1043, as construing the definition. That decision was not retrieved or read for this page, and nothing about its holding is asserted here. What can be said is that the answer, if there is one, is in the cases and not in the sections.

When a rental agreement exists that specifies it and the payer is a tenant under that agreement — and the statute does not say when that happens. This is the conditional all seven share, and it is worth stating it precisely for Kansas because both of the absolute versions are wrong.

It is wrong to say that holding deposits are unregulated in Kansas. K.S.A. 58-2543(k) lets a rental agreement be oral, and (m) says “however denominated”. A landlord who has agreed to rent, takes money, and calls it a holding deposit may well be holding a security deposit, and every rule in § 58-2550 may already apply to it.

It is equally wrong to say that the Kansas security-deposit cap applies to holding deposits. The cap in § 58-2550(a) applies to a security deposit, and (m) defines that as a sum “specified in a rental agreement” deposited “by a tenant”. Money paid by someone the landlord has not agreed to rent to is, on the text, neither. The cap does not reach it by its terms.

The correct statement is the conditional one. A holding deposit paid before any agreement to rent is not a security deposit on the literal text. A holding deposit paid at or after the moment the parties agree to rent — even orally — may be one. The text of neither section resolves which side of that line a given deposit falls on. That depends on when an agreement was formed, which is a question of fact and of contract law, answered by courts.

Two practical consequences follow for a landlord who wants to stay on the safe side of the line without knowing exactly where it is. The first is that the holding record should state, in terms, whether a rental agreement has been formed. A written statement that “no rental agreement has been made; this payment holds the unit pending the landlord’s decision” is not conclusive — a court decides what the parties actually agreed — but it is the best evidence available of the fact the statute turns on. The second is that the amount and the handling should be chosen so that they comply with § 58-2550 if it applies. A holding deposit within the (a) cap, returned promptly when the deal does not proceed, complies with § 58-2550 on the reading that applies it and is not reached by it on the other. A holding deposit above the cap, kept on a ground (b) does not allow, is not reached by § 58-2550 on the reading that puts it outside the statute — whether the parties’ agreement and contract law permit it was not researched — and, on the other, exposes the landlord to return of the portion due plus damages of 1½ the amount wrongfully withheld.

A cap, a return deadline counted in days, and — on a failure to comply with the return rule — recovery of the portion due plus damages of one and one-half times the amount wrongfully withheld. These are the rules that attach the moment a holding deposit crosses into (m), and they are the reason the line matters.

The cap, subsection (a). A security deposit may be “not … in excess of one month’s periodic rent” for an unfurnished unit. For a furnished unit the figure is one and one-half months, and an additional one-half month is permitted for pets. Note the measure: the statute says “periodic rent”. Kansas sets no separate figure for a holding deposit; the sections read contain no holding-deposit provision. If a holding deposit is a security deposit, this is its cap; if it is not, Kansas states no cap for it, and this page does not supply one.

The return, subsection (b). The landlord must return the balance “within 14 days after the determination of the amount of such expenses… but in no event to exceed 30 days after termination of the tenancy, delivery of possession and demand by the tenant.” The structure is a two-part clock. The subsection opens “Upon termination of the tenancy” and lets the deposit be applied “to the payment of accrued rent and the amount of damages which the landlord has suffered by reason of the tenant’s noncompliance with K.S.A. 58-2555, and amendments thereto, and the rental agreement, all as itemized by the landlord in a written notice delivered to the tenant”. The inner period is 14 days from the point at which the landlord has determined the amount of those “expenses, damages or other legally allowable charges under the provisions of the rental agreement”. The outer limit is 30 days, and it runs from three things together: termination of the tenancy, delivery of possession, and the tenant’s demand; if the tenant makes no demand within 30 days, the landlord mails the portion due to the tenant’s last known address. The statute counts in days and so does this page.

The penalty, subsection (c). Verbatim: “If the landlord fails to comply with subsection (b) of this section, the tenant may recover that portion of the security deposit due together with damages in an amount equal to 1½ the amount wrongfully withheld.” The damages are measured on the amount wrongfully withheld, not the whole deposit, and they come on top of the portion due.

Read those three subsections with a holding deposit in mind and one feature stands out. Every trigger presupposes a tenancy that began and ended: “termination of the tenancy”, “delivery of possession”, a “tenant” making demand. The section was written for money held across an occupancy. It does not say how its clock runs, or whether it runs at all, where money was paid and the occupancy never started. That is the gap the next two sections address.

Kansas sets no cap on a holding deposit as such. If the holding deposit is a security deposit, § 58-2550(a) caps it at one month’s periodic rent for an unfurnished unit. Both halves of that sentence are needed, and neither can be dropped.

The first half follows from the absence of any holding-deposit provision in the sections read. Neither section read says how much a landlord may take to hold a unit for an applicant who has not been approved. This page does not fill that gap with a figure from anywhere else; where a state sets no cap the honest statement is that it sets none. What governs an amount in that situation is the parties’ agreement and the general law of contract, which this page does not state.

The second half follows from (m) and (k). If the parties had agreed to rent when the money was paid, the money may be a security deposit, and (a) then limits it: “not … in excess of one month’s periodic rent” unfurnished, one and one-half months furnished, an additional one-half month for pets. And if the holding deposit is applied to the security deposit on signing — where the record provides that — then from that moment it is unambiguously a sum “specified in a rental agreement”, and the security deposit as a whole, holding money included, must sit within (a).

The practical rule that survives both readings is therefore simple. Take no more as a holding deposit than you could lawfully hold as a security deposit, and make sure the combined amount after signing does not exceed the cap. A holding deposit above one month’s periodic rent is not reached by § 58-2550 on the reading that says it is outside the statute — whether the parties’ agreement and contract law permit it was not researched; it is a liability in waiting on the reading that says it is inside, and a landlord cannot know in advance which reading a court will take.

The statute does not address it. What follows depends on which side of the (m) line the money is on, and on the conditions the record specified.

Start with the case where no rental agreement existed when the money was paid. The applicant was still being screened, or had not yet agreed to the unit, the rent and the date. On the text of (o) that person was not a tenant, and on the text of (m) the money was not a security deposit. K.S.A. 58-2550 does not reach it by its terms: the cap in (a), the 14-day and 30-day periods in (b) and the 1½-times penalty in (c) are all keyed to a security deposit and a tenant. Whether the landlord may keep any of the money is then governed by whatever the parties agreed and by the general law of contract — which this page did not research and does not state. What the page can say is that a record which stated, before the money was paid, what would happen if the applicant withdrew is the best evidence of what was agreed, and a record that said nothing leaves the landlord arguing about it.

Now the case where an oral rental agreement may have existed. The application was approved, the terms were agreed, the applicant paid to hold the unit until signing, and then did not sign. If a court found that an agreement existed, the money was a security deposit under (m), and what may be retained from a security deposit is governed by § 58-2550(b): accrued rent, damages for the tenant’s noncompliance with K.S.A. 58-2555 or the rental agreement, and “other legally allowable charges under the provisions of the rental agreement”. Nothing on this page shows that a forfeiture clause in a holding record — a document that is not the rental agreement — is one of those grounds, and this page does not say it is. A bare “non-refundable” label is not one either.

And here the statute goes silent in a second way. Subsection (b)’s clock runs from “termination of the tenancy, delivery of possession and demand by the tenant”. Where the applicant walked away before moving in, there was no tenancy to terminate and no possession to deliver. The text does not say how, or whether, the 14-day and 30-day periods operate on those facts, and this page does not say either. Nor does the text say whether an applicant who never took possession is a “tenant” who can “demand” under (b) or recover under (c). Those are questions the section as written does not reach.

The course that does not depend on the answer is to treat the money as though (b) and (c) applied: determine promptly what, if anything, (b) entitles you to keep, return the rest within the periods the statute names, and keep proof of the return. A landlord who does that is compliant on the reading that puts the money inside the statute and is simply prudent on the reading that puts it outside.

The statute is silent. Nothing in K.S.A. 58-2550 addresses a landlord who takes money to hold a unit and then declines to rent it. The section was searched for “prospective”, “applicant”, “holding” and “reservation” and contains none of them; it contains no provision on a landlord’s withdrawal at all.

If no rental agreement existed when the money was paid, the money was not a security deposit, and the landlord’s obligation to return it comes from the parties’ agreement and the general law rather than from § 58-2550. This page does not state that general law. It does state the obvious: a landlord who took money to hold a unit and then did not deliver the unit has no basis in anything on this page for keeping any of it.

If an oral rental agreement may have existed, the money may be a security deposit, and § 58-2550(c) provides that “If the landlord fails to comply with subsection (b) of this section, the tenant may recover that portion of the security deposit due together with damages in an amount equal to 1½ the amount wrongfully withheld.” Whether (b) runs on facts where the landlord, not the tenant, ended the arrangement before possession is not answered by the text, for the same reason given in the previous section: (b) opens “Upon termination of the tenancy” and its clock is keyed to termination of the tenancy, delivery of possession and demand by the tenant, and none of those events fits a tenancy that never began. Because (c) is triggered only by a failure to comply with (b), it reaches this landlord only if a tenancy existed and terminated — which the text does not resolve.

The record should therefore say, before any money changes hands, that if the landlord does not proceed the holding deposit is returned in full, and by when. Then do it, and keep the proof. The cost of doing so on the reading where the statute does not apply is nothing. The cost of not doing so on the reading where it does apply is the portion due plus damages of one and one-half times the amount wrongfully withheld.

The statute does not say — but K.S.A. 58-2543(m) tells you what forfeiture looks like when the money is a security deposit, and a label is not it.

The definition in (m) contemplates that a security deposit “or any part thereof, may be forfeited by the tenant under the terms of the rental agreement upon the occurrence or breach of conditions specified therein”. Three things are required by those words: terms in the rental agreement; conditions specified in it; and an occurrence or breach of one of them. A receipt that says “holding deposit — non-refundable” supplies none of the three. It names no condition, so nothing can occur or be breached, and it is not the rental agreement.

When the money is a security deposit, what may be retained is governed by § 58-2550(b): accrued rent, damages for the tenant’s noncompliance with K.S.A. 58-2555 or the rental agreement, and “other legally allowable charges under the provisions of the rental agreement”, itemised in a written notice. Nothing on this page shows that a forfeiture clause in a holding record — which is not the rental agreement — is one of those grounds. Whether an applicant’s payment made before any agreement can be forfeited under a pre-lease writing is a different question, and one the text does not reach: (m) is about a sum deposited by a tenant under a rental agreement, and a pre-lease holding record is neither. The answer there lies in the general law of contract, which this page did not research and does not state.

Nothing in the Kansas text retrieved for this page bars a landlord from describing a sum as non-refundable, and this page does not assert such a bar. It asserts only what (m) requires of a forfeiture when the money is a security deposit.

Each item in the checklist above maps onto a word in the statute. The names, the unit and the amount are the “landlord”, the “dwelling unit” and the “sum of money” in (m). The statement whether an agreement has been formed is the fact (o) and (k) turn on, and it is the single most important line in the document, because a record that is silent on it leaves the question to be reconstructed from memory. The statement of what happens on withdrawal records what the parties agreed; if the money is a security deposit, what may actually be retained is governed by (b), not by the record. The cap check is (a). The dates are what (b) counts and what a claim under (c) is measured against.

Two items are deliberately not in the list. The sections read prescribe no Kansas holding-deposit form, so the record should not be captioned as one. And they name no Kansas return deadline for money paid by someone who never became a tenant, so any deadline the record sets is the parties’ own choice and should be presented as such. Setting it at or inside the 14-day and 30-day periods in (b) is sensible, because it makes the landlord’s conduct compliant on the reading where (b) applies; but the record should not describe those periods as statutory obligations on a holding deposit, because the statute does not say they are.

If it becomes the security deposit, it is the security deposit, and § 58-2550(a) governs the whole of it. The section does not speak of holding money separately; it speaks of “a security deposit”, and caps that at “not … in excess of one month’s periodic rent” for an unfurnished unit, one and one- half months for a furnished one, plus one-half month for pets.

One arrangement is that the holding deposit is applied to the security deposit when the lease is signed. From that moment it is money “specified in a rental agreement”, deposited “by a tenant”, to be forfeited “under the terms of the rental agreement” — every element of (m) is met, and there is no longer any argument about timing. The amount that then has to sit within (a) is the total: the holding money plus anything further collected as security. A landlord who takes one month’s periodic rent to hold an unfurnished unit and then a further month as security at signing has, on any reading, once the holding money is applied to the security deposit, a security deposit in excess of the cap.

Where the holding deposit is instead applied to the first period’s rent, the text does not say whether prepaid rent is a “security deposit”: (m) contains no advance-rent carve-out, and this page does not supply one.

What the text does not say is whether a holding deposit that was taken before any agreement and was never applied to the security deposit — because the deal fell through — counted toward anything. On the reading that it was outside (m), it did not. On the reading that an oral agreement had already been formed, it was itself a security deposit and (a) applied to it directly. The page states both readings because the statute supports neither exclusively.

K.S.A. 58-2550(c) gives the tenant the portion of the deposit due plus damages of one and one-half times the amount wrongfully withheld. Verbatim: “If the landlord fails to comply with subsection (b) of this section, the tenant may recover that portion of the security deposit due together with damages in an amount equal to 1½ the amount wrongfully withheld.”

Three features of that text matter for a holding deposit. First, the damages are calculated on the amount wrongfully withheld, not on the whole deposit, and they are recovered “together with” the portion due; a landlord who retains part on a ground (b) allows and wrongfully keeps the remainder is exposed on the remainder. Second, the words state the measure as a fixed multiple and contain no bad-faith element; what a court requires to be proved is not stated on this page. Third, it attaches to a security deposit, which brings the enquiry back to (m): a landlord who wrongfully keeps money that was a security deposit — because an oral agreement existed when it was paid, or because it was applied to the security deposit at signing — is within (c); a landlord who keeps money that never satisfied (m) is outside it and in the general law of contract instead.

What the section does not say is how (c) interacts with a tenancy that never began. Subsection (c) is triggered by a failure to comply with (b), and (b) is triggered “Upon termination of the tenancy”. So (c) reaches money withheld from someone who never moved in only if a tenancy existed and terminated — and the text does not resolve whether it does on those facts. This page states the words and does not go further.

All seven states compared here have been read from primary text, and none has a holding-deposit statute; each has a security-deposit definition instead. In Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi and Vermont, as in Kansas, a “tenant” is a person entitled under a rental agreement that may be oral; no such definition was reached for California, and Georgia’s definition ties the money to a tenant and a residential rental agreement without defining the tenant. The differences are in how broadly each definition is written, and Kansas sits at the narrow end.

Kansas ties the deposit to an existing rental agreement three times — “specified in a rental agreement”, “by a tenant”, forfeited “under the terms of the rental agreement” — and its operative section never uses “prospective” or “applicant”. On its face it is the cleanest “no” of the seven to pre-lease money, and the only doorway is (k)’s “or oral”. Iowa is the closest relative: its § 562A.6(12) defines a rental deposit as “a deposit of money to secure performance of a residential rental agreement, other than a deposit which is exclusively in advance payment of rent”, so money paid by a mere applicant secures performance of no agreement — unless an oral agreement already existed, in which case it does. Iowa’s cap is two months’ rent under § 562A.12(1), and a full sweep of its chapter found “holding deposit”, “applicant” and “earnest” nowhere.

California, unlike Kansas, reaches pre-lease money by breadth. Civil Code § 1950.5(b) defines “security” to include any payment, fee, deposit or charge “imposed at the beginning of the tenancy to be used to reimburse the landlord for costs associated with processing a new tenant”, and carves out the application screening fee under § 1950.6. The cap under § 1950.5(c)(1) is one month’s rent — not the two or three months older sources still quote — with a two-month exception in (c)(5) for a landlord who is a natural person, or a limited liability company in which all members are natural persons, owning no more than two residential rental properties with no more than four units between them. Even there, the word “holding” appears only in “a landlord holding the security”; the reach comes from the breadth of “security”, and whether the section addresses a tenant who pays and never takes possession is open.

Connecticut reaches pre-lease money through the phrase “advance rental payment”: § 47a-21(a)(11) makes a security deposit “any advance rental payment… except an advance payment for the first month’s rent or a deposit for a key or any special equipment”. Its cap is two months’ rent, or one month for a tenant sixty-two or older, and its return runs twenty-one days after termination or fifteen days after a forwarding address, whichever is later, with a penalty of twice the deposit — and note that the thirty-day figure in that section’s amendment history is superseded. Connecticut’s “tenant”, like Kansas’s, is a person entitled under a rental agreement, and its rental agreement is “all agreements, written or oral”.

Vermont, by contrast, reaches a holding deposit by its label — 9 V.S.A. § 4461(a) makes a security deposit “any advance, deposit, or prepaid rent, however named” — but ties it to money “refundable to the tenant at the termination or expiration of the tenancy”, which presupposes a tenancy. Vermont sets no cap, requires return within 14 days of discovering the tenant vacated (60 days for seasonal, non-primary-residence occupancy), and separately bars application fees outright under § 4456a(a). What happens to money paid by someone who never becomes a tenant is not answered by its text.

Mississippi names pre-lease money and excludes it. § 89-8-21(1) governs any deposit whose primary function is to 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”. A holding deposit is money paid to secure the execution — the signing — of a rental agreement, so the clause describes it exactly and removes it from the section’s forty-five-day return rule and its two-hundred-dollar bad-faith penalty. Mississippi sets no cap on amount. Its codified text was not reachable and this page relies on the Legislature’s own bill-text recitals, which two independent retrievals matched word for word.

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 “the equivalent of 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 comparison sharpens what is distinctive about Kansas. California and Vermont wrote definitions broad enough to reach pre-lease money by breadth or by label; Mississippi named it and excluded it; Kansas and Iowa wrote definitions keyed to an existing agreement and left the oral doorway open. A Kansas landlord should take from this that the figures on this page are Kansas figures only. Connecticut’s two months, Iowa’s thirty days and Vermont’s no-cap rule are facts about those states, and none of them is a Kansas rule.

Several things, and each is stated so that the page does not appear to answer questions it did not ask.

Case law. No Kansas decision was read. The publisher’s annotation to K.S.A. 58-2543(m) cites Clark v. Walker, 225 Kan. 359, 590 P.2d 1043, as construing the definition; that decision was not retrieved, and nothing about what it held is asserted here. The question whether a prospective tenant is a “tenant” for security-deposit purposes is the operative question on this page and is likely answered by courts rather than by the sections quoted.

Whether an oral commitment to rent is a “rental agreement” under (k). The text says an agreement may be oral; it does not say what makes an oral exchange an “agreement” under which a person is “entitled” to occupy. That is contract formation, and this page does not state Kansas contract law.

Money paid by someone who never takes possession. Every trigger in § 58-2550(b) presupposes a tenancy that began. The section does not say how it applies, or whether it applies, where the applicant walked away or the landlord backed out before move-in. This page says the statute is silent and does not fill the silence.

The rest of § 58-2550. This page quotes the cap in (a), subsection (b) and subsection (c). It does not state anything about interest, receipts or escrow for Kansas, because nothing on those points was extracted and none is asserted.

Application fees. Whether Kansas has any provision on application or screening fees was not researched. A holding deposit and an application fee are different things — one is refundable money that holds a unit, the other is a charge for processing — and this page addresses only the first.

Municipal ordinances. None was researched. This page states the two state sections named and nothing else.

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

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