Free Mississippi Holding Deposit Agreement

A holding deposit is money a prospective tenant pays to take a unit off the market before a lease is signed. None of the seven states compared here has a statute about it; each has a security-deposit statute, and the question on every page is whether that statute’s definition reaches money paid before a rental agreement exists. Mississippi answers that question by name, and the answer is in a subordinate clause. Miss. Code § 89-8-21(1) governs any deposit “the primary function of which is to secure the performance of a rental agreement” — and then excepts “a payment or deposit, including an advance payment of rent, made to secure the execution of a rental agreement”. That exception describes a holding deposit exactly. The legislature named the category and placed it outside the section. What the section does not do is say what happens to that money instead, or say when a payment stops securing the signing and starts securing an agreement that — because Mississippi rental agreements may be oral — may already exist. This page quotes the words, states what follows from them, and marks plainly where the statute is silent.

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. Mississippi prescribes no holding-deposit form, no holding-deposit receipt and no holding-deposit rule; what it prescribes is a line in § 89-8-21(1) that places money “made to secure the execution of a rental agreement” outside the section that governs deposits securing performance. A document captioned as though it satisfied a Mississippi holding-deposit statute would claim something no section says. What this record does instead is supply the terms the statute leaves to the parties: the amount, the function of the money stated in the statute’s own words, the date by which the rental agreement is to be executed, what happens to the money if the applicant does not sign, what happens if the landlord does not sign, and what the money becomes when the lease is executed. Three limits belong on the page rather than in the form. First, the text quoted here comes from the Legislature’s own bill-text server — a 2024 recital of § 89-8-21 in HB 1580 § 11, byte-identical to a 2023 recital in SB 2375, and the enrolled 2025 HB 1200 § 4 for the definitions — because the codified LexisNexis page was CAPTCHA-blocked and could not be verified. These are primary government documents but they are not the codified publication. Second, whether a prospective tenant is a “tenant” for the purposes of § 89-8-21, and when an oral agreement becomes a rental agreement whose performance a payment secures, are questions the statute does not answer and case law was not researched. Third, municipal ordinances were not researched, and this page addresses the state statute only.

• The amount paid, as a figure, and the method of payment. Mississippi sets no cap on any deposit, so the record states the amount rather than measuring it against a limit.
• The function of the money, in the statute’s words. That it is a “payment or deposit … made to secure the execution of a rental agreement” — the § 89-8-21(1) carve-out — and not a deposit securing performance of an agreement already made.
• The date and time it was paid, and by whom. Because § 89-8-7(l) makes an oral agreement a rental agreement, the date the money changed hands relative to the date any agreement was reached is the fact the conditional turns on.
• The unit, and the statement that it will be held off the market for the applicant until the execution date, and not offered to anyone else in that period.
• The date by which the rental agreement is to be executed, and the rent and term the parties have discussed, stated as the terms to be offered rather than as terms already agreed.
• What happens if the applicant does not execute by that date. § 89-8-21 does not say. The record has to state whether the money is returned in full, in part, or retained, and if retained, against what.
• What happens if the landlord does not execute. § 89-8-21 does not say this either. The record asks what happens to the money, and by when, because no statutory deadline runs on money paid to secure execution — unless an oral agreement to rent already existed when it was paid (§ 89-8-7(l)), in which case the forty-five (45) day rule in (3) may attach.
• What the money becomes on execution — applied to a deposit securing performance, applied to rent, or split — and the statement that from that date any deposit portion is held for the tenant under § 89-8-21(2) and returned or itemised under (3).
• Nothing claiming the record is a statutory form, and nothing stating a Mississippi holding-deposit rule, because there is none. The badge reads “Holding Deposit Record” for that reason.
• Both signatures and a copy to the applicant, so that the document recording the money’s function exists in both parties’ hands before any dispute about that function arises.

• Telling an applicant Mississippi’s forty-five (45) day return rule applies to the holding deposit, without the conditional. § 89-8-21(3) runs from “the termination of his tenancy, the delivery of possession and demand by the tenant” — three triggers that presuppose a tenancy — and subsection (1) puts money paid to secure execution outside the section. But if an oral agreement to rent already existed when the money was paid (§ 89-8-7(l)), the money may be a governed deposit and the forty-five (45) day rule may attach. The honest statement is conditional in both directions.
• Telling an applicant holding deposits are unregulated in Mississippi. The legislature named the category in § 89-8-21(1). The accurate statement is that no statutory holding rule, return deadline or penalty attaches to money paid to secure execution — not that the law has nothing to say.
• Taking the money after agreeing terms on the phone and calling it a holding deposit. § 89-8-7(l) makes an oral agreement a rental agreement. If one was formed before the money was paid, the money may be securing performance of an existing agreement, and subsection (1) may govern it.
• Quoting a cap. Mississippi sets no cap on any deposit anywhere in the Act. A page that prints a months’-rent figure for Mississippi has imported another state’s rule.
• Leaving the walk-away case to the statute. § 89-8-21 says nothing about money paid to secure an execution that never happens. A record silent on forfeiture has reproduced the statute’s silence.
• Leaving the landlord-backs-out case to the statute. Equally silent. The $200.00 bad-faith damages in (4) are for retention of a deposit the section governs; nothing in § 89-8-21 extends them to money paid to secure execution.
• Failing to record the conversion. Once the lease is executed, money applied to a deposit securing performance is inside § 89-8-21: held for the tenant under (2), returned or itemised within forty-five (45) days under (3). An undated conversion invites a dispute over when those duties began.
• Citing the codified section as verified. The text on this page comes from the Legislature’s bill recitals of § 89-8-21 and the enrolled 2025 definitions bill; the LexisNexis codification was CAPTCHA-blocked and is unverified.
• Treating “deposit” as though it appeared throughout the Act. It appears ten times, all inside § 89-8-21. “Security deposit”, “earnest” and “prospective” appear nowhere in §§ 89-8-1 to 89-8-45.
• Assuming a court would read the carve-out the way this page does. Case law was searched in no state for this page. Whether a prospective tenant is a “tenant” for these purposes is the operative question, and it is one for courts.

No section of the Mississippi Act is about holding deposits — but the Act is not silent about them either: § 89-8-21(1) names money “made to secure the execution of a rental agreement” in order to put it outside the section, and it stays outside unless an oral agreement to rent already existed when the money was paid (§ 89-8-7(l)), in which case the same money may be securing performance and the section may govern it. A full sweep of the Act from § 89-8-1 to § 89-8-45 found the word “holding” once, in § 89-8-19 on holding over, which is a different subject. “Security deposit”, “earnest” and “prospective” do not appear at all. “Deposit” appears ten times, and every one of them is inside § 89-8-21. So there is one section in Mississippi that deals with deposits, and everything on this page comes from it and from the definitions in § 89-8-7 that feed it.

What makes Mississippi unusual among the seven is that the one section names pre-lease money in terms. Subsection (1) governs money whose “primary function” is “to secure the performance of a rental agreement”, and then carves out “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. The legislature described the category and placed it outside the section.

Two consequences follow, and they pull in opposite directions. Because the money is outside the section, the section’s forty-five (45) day return rule and its $200.00 bad-faith penalty do not, by their terms, reach it. Because the legislature wrote the exclusion, “Mississippi is silent” is false. The accurate statement is the narrow one: no statutory holding rule, return deadline or penalty attaches to money paid to secure the execution of a rental agreement. The statute is silent on what happens to that money instead, and the contract law that would govern the parties’ own terms was not researched; that is why the record this page produces is a contract and not a statutory form.

It says the section does not govern it. The first subsection, quoted in full because paraphrase blurs the line it draws:

“Any payment or deposit of money, the primary function of which is to secure the performance of a rental agreement or any part of such an agreement, other than a payment or deposit, including an advance payment of rent, made to secure the execution of a rental agreement shall be governed by the provisions of this section.”

Three phrases carry the weight. “Primary function” makes the test a functional one: the section asks what the money is for, not what the parties called it. A payment labelled a holding deposit that in fact secures the tenant’s performance of an existing agreement is inside; a payment labelled a security deposit that in fact secures a signing that has not yet happened is, on the words, outside. “Secure the performance of a rental agreement” presupposes an agreement whose performance can be secured — the tenant paying rent, keeping the unit, giving it back. “Other than a payment or deposit … made to secure the execution of a rental agreement” is the carve-out, and it is written broadly enough to name one form of holding money in terms, “an advance payment of rent” handed over to reserve a unit.

The rest of the section is for deposits inside subsection (1). Subsection (2) provides that a governed deposit is “held by the landlord for the tenant who is a party to such agreement.” Subsection (3) requires a written, itemised claim against the deposit, with the remainder returned “no later than forty-five (45) days after the termination of his tenancy, the delivery of possession and demand by the tenant.” Subsection (4) prices bad-faith retention at damages “not to exceed Two Hundred Dollars ($200.00) in addition to any actual damages.” And no subsection caps the amount — not of a deposit the section governs, and not of anything else. A sweep of the whole Act from § 89-8-1 to § 89-8-45 found no cap anywhere in it.

One note on provenance, because the page would be dishonest without it. The text above comes from the Mississippi Legislature’s own bill-text server: a 2024 bring-forward bill, HB 1580 § 11, recites § 89-8-21 verbatim and is byte-identical to a 2023 recital in SB 2375; the definitions come from the enrolled, Governor-approved 2025 HB 1200 § 4. The codified LexisNexis page was CAPTCHA-blocked and is unverified. The Legislature’s per-section index shows no bill touching § 89-8-21 in 2022–2026, and two independent agents retrieved the same text and agree on it word for word. These are primary government documents, but they are not the codified publication, and the page says so.

On the plain words of § 89-8-21(1), not while it secures the signing — but the definitions make that a conditional answer rather than a settled one. Mississippi does not use the phrase “security deposit” anywhere in the Act; the section speaks of “any payment or deposit of money” and sorts it by function. Money whose function is to secure execution is put outside. Money whose function is to secure performance is put inside.

The difficulty is that the function of a payment can depend on whether an agreement already existed when it was paid, and Mississippi’s definitions make agreement easy to reach. § 89-8-7(l), as amended in 2025: “‘Rental agreement’ means all written or oral agreements”. § 89-8-7(m): “‘Tenant’ means a person entitled under a rental agreement to occupy a dwelling unit”. And § 89-8-21(2) provides that a governed deposit is “held by the landlord for the tenant who is a party to such agreement.”

Take the two ends of the spectrum. An applicant views the unit, has not been approved, and leaves money to keep it off the market while the application is processed. No agreement to rent has been reached. That money secures nothing but the possibility of a signing, the applicant is not a party to any rental agreement and so is not a “tenant”, and on the words of subsection (1) the section does not govern the payment. At the other end, the landlord approves the application, the parties agree the rent, the term and the move-in date by phone, and the applicant pays the next morning against a lease to be signed at move-in. Under (l) an oral agreement is a rental agreement. If one was formed in that call, there may be an agreement in existence whose performance the payment secures, the applicant may be a person entitled under it to occupy, and subsection (1) may govern the money — with the forty-five (45) day rule and the $200.00 bad-faith penalty attached.

The text of § 89-8-21 does not say where between those two ends the line falls. Neither § 89-8-21 nor § 89-8-7 defines “execution”. The text does not say whether an oral commitment to rent is an agreement that has already been executed, so that money paid afterward secures performance, or one that still awaits execution, so that money paid afterward secures the signing. That is a question about when an agreement was formed, and it is answered by courts, not by these sections. Case law was searched in no state for this page. The page therefore states the conditional and does not pretend the statute resolves it. A landlord who wants the money to be on the “execution” side should take it before terms are agreed and should record, in the statute’s words, that it is paid to secure the execution of a rental agreement not yet made.

No. Mississippi sets no cap on any deposit, and this page prints no figure because there is none to print. § 89-8-21 contains no limit on the amount of a deposit it governs, and a sweep of the Act from § 89-8-1 to § 89-8-45 found no cap anywhere. That is true of deposits inside subsection (1) and, a fortiori, of money the carve-out puts outside it.

Two things follow for the record. The amount is whatever the parties agree, and the agreement should state it as a figure with the method of payment, because if the money later converts to a deposit securing performance it is that amount which will be “held by the landlord for the tenant” under (2) and returned or accounted for under (3). And any page that prints a cap figure for Mississippi — a fraction of the rent, a number of months’ rent — has imported another state’s rule. Five of the seven states compared here cap the amount of a security deposit; Mississippi is one of the two that set no cap at all. The comparison section below carries that, and it carries no figure for Mississippi because the statute gives none.

A cap is not the only thing this page does not state. Beyond the words “held by the landlord for the tenant who is a party to such agreement” in (2), nothing read for this page addresses where a governed Mississippi deposit must be kept, whether it earns interest, or whether a receipt is required, and this page does not state a rule on any of them. Those points were not researched; they are marked as such rather than filled.

The statute sets no deadline for money paid to secure execution. It sets a forty-five (45) day deadline for deposits it governs, and the triggers of that deadline show why it does not reach a holding deposit by its terms. § 89-8-21(3) requires a written, itemised claim and return of the remainder “no later than forty-five (45) days after the termination of his tenancy, the delivery of possession and demand by the tenant.”

Read the three triggers. Termination of a tenancy presupposes a tenancy. Delivery of possession presupposes that possession was taken. Demand by the tenant presupposes a tenant, which under § 89-8-7(m) means a person entitled under a rental agreement to occupy. An applicant who paid to hold a unit and never signed has no tenancy to terminate, no possession to deliver and is not a tenant. Even if the carve-out in (1) did not exist, the clock in (3) would have nothing to start it. With the carve-out, the money is outside the section before the question of a deadline arises.

So the statute sets no return date for a Mississippi holding deposit; the only one is whatever the agreement sets, and whether Mississippi contract law would enforce it was not researched. The record this page generates asks for it in two places: the date by which the money is returned if the landlord declines to execute, and the date by which it is returned, if it is to be returned, when the applicant declines. Neither date comes from the statute. A landlord who leaves them out has left the applicant with no statutory deadline, and has left themselves with no answer when the applicant asks for one.

The forty-five (45) day rule does become relevant later. Once the lease is executed and the money is applied to a deposit that secures performance, that deposit is inside subsection (1) and the (3) deadline runs at the end of the tenancy in the ordinary way. The statute states the period in days, and sets the deadline “after the termination of his tenancy, the delivery of possession and demand by the tenant” without stating how the three triggers relate to one another. This page prints days because the statute does; it does not convert them.

The statute is silent. § 89-8-21 says nothing about what becomes of money paid to secure an execution that never happens. The carve-out in subsection (1) removes that money from the section; it does not say the landlord may keep it, and it does not say the landlord must return it. No other section of the Act addresses the case — the sweep found “deposit” nowhere outside § 89-8-21, and “earnest” and “prospective” nowhere at all.

That silence has to be read alongside the conditional. If the money was paid before any agreement existed — to hold the unit while an application was processed, say — it secured execution, it is outside the section, and the statute supplies no rule for it in either direction. What governs it is the holding-deposit agreement and whatever general law of contract Mississippi applies to a clause of that kind, which this page has not researched and does not state. If instead an oral agreement to rent had already been formed when the money was paid, the money may have been securing the performance of that agreement, the applicant who then refuses to sign may be a tenant who has failed to perform, and the money may be a deposit governed by § 89-8-21 — in which case the landlord’s claim against it is made under (3), in writing and itemised, and a retention in bad faith is exposed to the damages in (4). The text does not say which of those two descriptions fits a given payment.

The practical response is to write the forfeiture term rather than rely on the statute for one. The record this page generates asks whether the money is returned in full, returned in part, or retained if the applicant does not execute by the stated date, and if retained, against what. A term tied to identifiable consequences of the unit being held — the days it was off the market, the cost of re-advertising — is a term that describes what the money was for. Whether Mississippi would enforce any particular forfeiture term is a question about Mississippi contract law, which was not researched for this page and this page does not answer. What the page can say is that the statute will not answer it either.

The statute is silent here too. Nothing in § 89-8-21 addresses a landlord who takes money to secure the execution of a rental agreement and then declines to execute it. The carve-out removes the money from the section without saying what happens to it, and no other section of the Act picks it up.

The one provision a reader might reach for is subsection (4), which prices bad-faith retention at damages “not to exceed Two Hundred Dollars ($200.00) in addition to any actual damages.” But (4) is a penalty for retaining a deposit the section governs — a deposit that under (2) is “held by the landlord for the tenant who is a party to such agreement” and that under (3) is returned or accounted for after termination of a tenancy. Money paid to secure execution is outside subsection (1) on its own words, and nothing in § 89-8-21 extends the $200.00 figure in subsection (4) to it. The page does not claim that it does. Whether the applicant has a remedy in contract for the landlord’s refusal — return of the money, or more — is a question of general Mississippi law that was not researched.

The same conditional applies in reverse. If an oral agreement to rent had already been formed before the money was paid, the landlord who then refuses to sign may be refusing to perform an agreement that already exists, the money may be a governed deposit held for a tenant, and the duties in (3) and the exposure in (4) may attach. The text does not say which description fits.

A holding-deposit agreement should not leave the applicant to work any of that out. The record this page generates records the term the parties chose for the case where the landlord does not execute by the agreed date, and by when. A full return costs the landlord nothing a reasonable landlord would want to keep, and it removes the one scenario in which the applicant has the strongest reason to look for a remedy the statute does not clearly give.

The money changes function, and the section may change with it. Once the rental agreement is executed there is no execution left to secure, so the reason the carve-out applied has ended. What the money is for after that depends on what the agreement says happens to it, and the record this page generates asks for that in terms: applied to a deposit securing performance, applied to rent, or split between them.

If it is applied to a deposit securing performance, it is a “payment or deposit of money, the primary function of which is to secure the performance of a rental agreement” and subsection (1) governs it from that point. Under (2) it is “held by the landlord for the tenant who is a party to such agreement.” Under (3) it is returned, less a written and itemised claim, “no later than forty-five (45) days after the termination of his tenancy, the delivery of possession and demand by the tenant.” Under (4) a retention in bad faith is exposed to damages “not to exceed Two Hundred Dollars ($200.00) in addition to any actual damages.”

If it is applied to rent, the carve-out’s own words are worth noticing: the excluded category includes “an advance payment of rent, made to secure the execution of a rental agreement”. Nothing in § 89-8-21 addresses an advance rent payment once the agreement has been executed and the money is simply rent, and this page does not state a rule on it.

Either way, the conversion should be a dated event in the record and not an inference from it. A holding deposit whose agreement says “on execution of the lease this sum is applied to the security deposit” gives a date from which the (2) holding duty and the (3) return duty run, and gives both parties the same answer to the question of what the money became. A holding deposit whose paperwork stops at the receipt leaves that question open, in a state where the statute does not close it.

Deposits the section governs, retained in bad faith. Subsection (4) provides for damages “not to exceed Two Hundred Dollars ($200.00) in addition to any actual damages.” Two features of it matter to a holding deposit.

The first is its place in the section. Subsection (1) defines what the section governs; subsections (2), (3) and (4) then set out the duties and the price of breaching them for deposits inside (1). Money paid to secure execution is put outside (1) by its own words, so nothing in the section extends (4) to it, and this page does not assert that it does. A landlord who keeps a holding deposit after the applicant walks away is not, on the words of the section, retaining a governed deposit — unless the conditional cuts the other way and an oral agreement had already made the money a deposit securing performance, in which case (4) may apply in full.

The second is its size. The statutory figure is a ceiling — “not to exceed” — and it is “in addition to any actual damages” rather than in place of them. § 89-8-21 does not say what counts as actual damages, and this page does not. It means a landlord who lets a holding deposit convert to a security deposit on signing has accepted that exposure for the life of the tenancy. Nothing in that is a reason not to take a holding deposit; it is a reason to record the date on which it stopped being one.

Two things the record deliberately does not contain. It does not describe itself as a statutory form, because Mississippi prescribes none, and the badge on this page reads “Holding Deposit Record” for that reason. And it does not state a Mississippi holding-deposit rule, because there is none to state; the accurate statement of the law is the carve-out, the conditional, and the silence, and the record is built to fill the silence by agreement rather than by assertion.

From the Mississippi Legislature’s own bill-text server, and not from the codified publication, which could not be reached. The text of § 89-8-21 on this page was retrieved from a 2024 bring-forward bill, HB 1580 § 11, which recites the section verbatim and is byte-identical to a 2023 recital in SB 2375. The definitions in § 89-8-7(l) and (m) come from the enrolled, Governor-approved 2025 HB 1200 § 4. A control fetch of bogus bill documents returned HTTP 404 with a 1,245-byte “File or directory not found” body; the real document carries “89-8-21.”, “primary function” and “secure the execution”. The bytes were decoded as the document declares, windows-1252, after an initial UTF-8 decode produced replacement characters from 0xA0 bytes and was corrected before use. Two independent agents retrieved the same text and agree on it word for word.

What was not verified, stated plainly. The codified LexisNexis page for § 89-8-21 was CAPTCHA-blocked. The bill recitals are primary government documents, but they are not the codified publication, and the Legislature’s per-section index showing no bill touching § 89-8-21 in 2022–2026 is the reason for confidence that the recital matches the current code, not proof of it. Case law was searched in no state for this page; whether a prospective tenant is a “tenant” for the purposes of § 89-8-21, and when an oral agreement becomes a rental agreement whose performance a payment secures, are questions the statute does not answer and this page does not answer. Municipal ordinances were not researched. Mississippi’s general contract law on forfeiture and liquidated-damages clauses, which is where a holding-deposit forfeiture term would be tested, was not researched. Interest, escrow and receipt duties for Mississippi deposits were not researched and are not stated here. Earlier Mississippi bytes held in the raw archive came from a third-party mirror and are not the source of anything on this page; they exist only to confirm section numbers.

Seven states were read from primary text for this page — 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 deposit statute, and the seven differ in how their definitions treat money paid before a rental agreement exists.

Mississippi is the only one of the seven that names pre-lease money in order to exclude it: § 89-8-21(1) governs deposits securing performance “other than a payment or deposit, including an advance payment of rent, made to secure the execution of a rental agreement”. It sets no cap on any deposit. California is the one state whose definition names pre-lease money in order to include it: Civ. Code § 1950.5(b) defines “security” to reach a charge “imposed at the beginning of the tenancy to be used to reimburse the landlord for costs associated with processing a new tenant”, and its reach comes from the breadth of that word, not from any holding-deposit provision — “holding” appears in the section only in “a landlord holding the security”. Connecticut reaches pre-lease money through “any advance rental payment” in § 47a-21(a)(11). Vermont by contrast reaches it by label — 9 V.S.A. § 4461(a) defines a security deposit as 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, and Vermont, like Mississippi, sets no cap. Iowa defines a rental deposit as money “to secure performance of a residential rental agreement” in § 562A.6(12), which on a literal reading requires an agreement to exist. Kansas is by contrast the cleanest “no” of the seven on its face: K.S.A. 58-2543(m) ties a security deposit to an existing rental agreement three times over — a sum “specified in a rental agreement”, deposited “by a tenant”, forfeitable “under the terms of the rental agreement” — and § 58-2550 never uses “prospective” or “applicant” at all.

What runs under all seven is the same conditional. Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Vermont and Mississippi each define “tenant” as a person entitled under a rental agreement to occupy, and each defines a rental agreement to include an oral one. So in every one of them an applicant who pays and walks away before any agreement is, on the literal text, not a tenant — and in every one of them the moment landlord and applicant agree to rent, even by phone, the money may become a deposit subject to every rule. Mississippi’s carve-out changes the starting point, because it names the pre-agreement money and puts it outside the section rather than leaving the reader to infer that from the word “tenant”. It does not change the conditional, because it does not say when a payment stops securing execution and starts securing performance. Five of the seven cap the amount of a security deposit and two — Mississippi and Vermont — do not; this page prints no cap figure for any state because Mississippi has none and a figure from elsewhere would be another state’s rule.

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

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

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