Free New Hampshire Security Deposit Itemization Form

A New Hampshire security deposit itemization statement is the line-by-line accounting a landlord must produce whenever any part of a departing tenant’s deposit is withheld. Under N.H. Rev. Stat. Sec. 540-A:7, that statement has to list each amount claimed, indicate with particularity the nature of any repair, and carry satisfactory evidence such as a receipt, estimate, bill, or invoice. This page builds that statement and does the arithmetic for you. If you also need the transmittal cover, our New Hampshire security deposit return letter pairs with it, and our New Hampshire security deposit laws guide covers the wider framework.

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Video: a plain-language walkthrough of the New Hampshire deposit itemization – the 30-day return-and-itemization deadline, the particularity-and-evidence standard for each deduction, and the double-damages penalty under Sec. 540-A:8.

Generate Your New Hampshire Itemization Statement

Complete the fields below to build an itemized statement of deductions ready to print, sign, and send by certified mail. Enter the original deposit, add any interest owed on a deposit held a year or longer, and itemize each deduction with a specific description and, where the claim is unpaid rent or taxes, the period it covers. The builder totals the deductions, nets them against the deposit plus interest, and shows the refund due or, when the deductions run higher, the balance owed. Every figure flows straight into the PDF, so the written itemized statement that N.H. Rev. Stat. Sec. 540-A:7 requires is produced for you in one step. Because the statement is a formal exhibit rather than a friendly note, keep the descriptions concrete and the evidence attached.

New Hampshire’s Deposit Itemization Framework

New Hampshire’s security deposit rules live in Chapter 540-A of the Revised Statutes Annotated, the Prohibited Practices and Security Deposits chapter, with the itemize-and-return duty in Sec. 540-A:7 and the collection, receipt, trust-account, and interest duties in Sec. 540-A:6. Compared with a state that packs everything into one clause, New Hampshire loads several distinct obligations onto the landlord, and each of them can independently ground a claim. The deposit is capped, a signed receipt is required, the money must be held in trust rather than commingled, interest is owed on longer-held deposits, and the itemized statement must be timely, particular, and evidenced. Because the penalty in Sec. 540-A:8 doubles the deposit plus interest, one dropped step can turn a routine move-out into a costly dispute.

The itemization statement sits at the accounting core of that chain. It is the document by which the landlord discharges the Sec. 540-A:7 duty to itemize every amount claimed against the deposit, to describe each repair with particularity, and to attach the evidence that shows the work has been or will be done. Everything upstream, the receipt, the trust account, and the interest tracking, feeds into the numbers the statement reports, which is why the move-in documentation and the deposit records matter so much when a New Hampshire deposit is disputed. Where the return letter is the cover note, the itemization is the ledger the letter transmits.

What the Itemization Statement Is and Does

The itemization statement is the document that proves the landlord did the accounting the law requires and did it with the specificity the statute demands. Under N.H. Rev. Stat. Sec. 540-A:7, when a landlord claims any part of the deposit, the landlord must provide the tenant with a written, itemized list of the damages for which the tenant is claimed liable, indicating with particularity the nature of any repair and providing satisfactory evidence that the repair necessary to correct those damages has been or will be completed. The itemization statement is that written list. It ties every dollar withheld to a concrete, dated, evidenced line the landlord can later produce if the tenant challenges a deduction.

The document does three things at once. It satisfies the statutory duty to itemize each amount withheld and to describe each repair with particularity. It gives the tenant a specific line-by-line accounting to review and, if warranted, to dispute. And it creates a contemporaneous record that answers a later challenge. Without a properly delivered, particular, timely itemization, even legitimate deductions are exposed, because itemization is a precondition to withholding, and a landlord who cannot show a timely, particular, evidenced accounting has little to stand on when the tenant points to the thirty-day clock. That is the practical difference between an itemization that holds up and a claim that collapses.

Itemization Versus the Return Letter

New Hampshire law does not prescribe one rigid form, but the practice that survives scrutiny separates two documents that do two jobs. The return letter is the transmittal: it addresses the tenant, states the deposit decision, and encloses the refund. The itemization statement is the exhibit: a structured ledger that lists each deduction, its particular description, the period covered where relevant, and the arithmetic down to the refund or the balance owed. The two travel together in the same envelope, but the itemization carries the evidentiary weight because it is where particularity lives. This page builds the itemization; the return letter has its own builder so you can produce a matched pair without retyping the same figures twice.

The 30-Day Itemize-and-Return Deadline

The deadline is the heart of Sec. 540-A:7, and its structure catches landlords who treat the refund and the itemization as separate tasks. The statute requires the landlord to return the deposit and pay any interest due within thirty days from the termination of the tenancy, and, where the landlord withholds any part of the deposit, to deliver the written itemized statement inside that same window. All three obligations share one deadline. A landlord who mails the refund on day twenty-eight but sends the itemized statement on day thirty-five has still failed to comply, because the itemization is late, and lateness alone can be enough to trigger the Sec. 540-A:8 remedy even where the deductions themselves were valid.

The tenant should provide a forwarding address. If none is given, the landlord should send the statement, the refund, and any interest to the last known address and keep proof of the mailing. The safest practice is to calendar thirty days from the date the tenant surrendered possession, complete the itemized accounting well before that date, and send the package by certified mail so the delivery date is provable. Waiting until the deadline is near to start pricing repairs is how landlords miss it, and a missed deadline is what converts a defensible set of deductions into double-damages exposure.

Interest Under Sec. 540-A:6

New Hampshire does not require interest on every deposit, so the itemization treats interest as a conditional figure rather than a default. Under Sec. 540-A:6, a landlord who holds a security deposit for one year or longer must pay the tenant interest at a rate equal to the interest paid on regular savings accounts in the New Hampshire bank, savings and loan association, or credit union where the deposit is held. The statute also lets a tenant request accrued interest every three years, thirty days before the expiration of that year’s tenancy, with the landlord obligated to comply within thirty days after the tenancy ends. For a tenancy shorter than one year, no statutory interest accrues, so the interest line on the statement should read zero. When interest is owed, it is added to the deposit first, and the deductions are then netted against the combined figure, which is exactly how the builder above orders the math. Forgetting interest on a long tenancy is one of the most frequently overlooked New Hampshire duties and is its own violation.

The Deposit Cap, Receipt, and Trust-Account Rules

Section 540-A:6 also governs how much a landlord may collect and how the money must be held, and those front-end duties shape the figures that land on the itemization. A landlord may not demand or receive a deposit greater than one month’s rent or one hundred dollars, whichever is greater. On receiving the deposit, the landlord must forthwith deliver a signed receipt stating the amount and the institution where it is held, with a narrow exception for personal or government checks, where written notice about documenting the unit’s condition still applies. The deposit must be held in trust for the tenant at a bank, savings and loan, or credit union, or secured by a bond posted with the town or city, and it may not be commingled with the landlord’s own money or become an asset of the landlord until the tenancy ends. Each of these duties can independently ground a claim, so a landlord who wants a clean itemization starts by getting the intake right.

The Bad-Faith Remedy and the Double-Damages Penalty

The remedy is what gives the itemization its teeth. Under Sec. 540-A:8, a landlord who does not comply with Sec. 540-A:6, IV or Sec. 540-A:7 is liable to the tenant in damages equal to twice the sum of the security deposit plus any interest due, less any payments already made and any lawful charges owing. Read that carefully: the multiplier runs against the whole deposit plus interest, not merely against the amount wrongfully withheld, so mishandling a fifteen-hundred-dollar deposit can expose the landlord to roughly three thousand dollars before deductions. A violation is also treated as a violation of the New Hampshire Consumer Protection Act, and any agreement by which a tenant purports to waive these protections is void. The double-damages exposure is why the discipline of a timely, particular, well-documented itemization pays for itself many times over.

Permissible Deductions Under the Statute

Section 540-A:7 lets the landlord claim only defined categories, and the itemization should never stray beyond them. The landlord may deduct the cost of repairing damage to the premises beyond ordinary wear and tear, the tenant’s share of any increase in real estate taxes where the lease requires the tenant to pay it, unpaid rent, and other charges lawful under the rental agreement that remain unpaid. Each category is anchored to something the tenant did or failed to do; none of them reaches ordinary aging of the unit. For a claim of unpaid rent or unpaid taxes, the statement must also specify the period for which the claim is being made, which is a particularity requirement of its own. The written list must indicate with particularity the nature of any repair and include satisfactory evidence, which means a description, a figure, and supporting proof for every line, not a lump sum.

What to Include on the Itemization

A complete New Hampshire itemization statement usually shows:

• The parties and property – landlord, tenant, and the rental address, so the statement is self-identifying.
• The tenancy dates and surrender date – which fix the start of the thirty-day clock.
• The original deposit and any interest – the combined figure deductions are netted against.
• Each deduction on its own line – with a particular description and, for rent or taxes, the period covered.
• The satisfactory evidence for each line – receipts, invoices, bills, or labor estimates, attached to the statement.
• The arithmetic to the bottom line – deposit plus interest, minus total deductions, equals the refund due or the balance owed.

Send the statement by certified mail with return receipt to the forwarding address, retain the mailing receipt, and keep copies of everything.

Restricted-Property and Shared-Facility Tenancies

Some New Hampshire rentals fall under RSA 540-B rather than the standard 540-A framework, for example certain owner-occupied and shared-facility arrangements. Under Sec. 540-B:10, if there is no written agreement, the deposit for such a restricted-property tenancy must be returned within twenty days after the occupant has vacated. Confirm which chapter governs the tenancy before relying on the thirty-day rule, because the shorter twenty-day deadline can apply to these arrangements, and an itemization delivered on the thirtieth day is late if a twenty-day rule controlled.

How the Auto-Calculation Works

The builder is designed to remove the arithmetic errors that sink otherwise-valid itemizations. As you type, it adds the original deposit to any interest you entered to produce the combined base, sums the eight deduction lines, and subtracts the total deductions from the base. When the result is positive, the statement shows a refund due to the tenant. When it is exactly zero, it shows a zero refund, which happens when the deductions exactly consume the deposit and interest. When the deductions exceed the deposit and interest, the result goes negative, and the builder flips the label to a balance owed by the tenant and reports the shortfall as a positive figure. The same numbers that appear in the live math box are written verbatim into the PDF, so the on-screen total and the printed total can never diverge.

Consider a worked example. Suppose the original deposit is one thousand five hundred dollars and the deposit was held long enough to owe forty-five dollars of interest, for a combined base of one thousand five hundred forty-five dollars. If the itemized deductions are three hundred twenty dollars for drywall repair and one hundred thirty dollars for carpet cleaning beyond ordinary wear, the total deductions are four hundred fifty dollars, and the refund due to the tenant is one thousand ninety-five dollars. If instead the deductions had totaled one thousand eight hundred dollars, the base of one thousand five hundred forty-five dollars would be exceeded by two hundred fifty-five dollars, and the statement would report a balance owed by the tenant of two hundred fifty-five dollars rather than a refund. Both branches are handled automatically so you never have to remember which way the sign runs.

Pricing and Evidencing Each Deduction Category

Because Sec. 540-A:7 ties every deduction to particularity and evidence, it helps to work through the categories the statute actually allows and how each one is proven on the itemization. The goal is not to maximize the number of lines but to make each line one a small-claims court would credit without a second look.

Repair Costs Beyond Ordinary Wear and Tear

This is the largest and most disputed category. The landlord may recover the cost of repairing physical damage the tenant caused beyond ordinary wear and tear, and nothing more. The right evidence is the paid invoice from the contractor who did the work, or a written estimate where the repair has not yet been completed, paired with move-in and move-out photographs that show the damage was not present at the start of the tenancy. The description should name the room, the surface, and the nature of the harm – for example, “patch and repaint two fist-sized holes in the north bedroom wall, contractor invoice attached” rather than a bare “wall repair.” When a repair replaces something with a limited useful life, such as carpet or paint, the defensible figure reflects the remaining life the tenant destroyed, not the full cost of a brand-new installation, because charging a departing tenant for the landlord’s capital improvement is the kind of claim that draws a double-damages counterclaim.

Unpaid Rent

Unpaid rent is a clean deduction when it is documented, and the statute adds a specific requirement for it: the itemization must specify the period for which the claim is made. A line that reads “unpaid rent” is incomplete; a line that reads “unpaid rent, one month, covering the period the lease ran from the first through the last day of the final month, ledger attached” satisfies the period requirement and points to the proof. The supporting evidence is the rent ledger or payment history showing the missed period and the amount, tied to the rent figure in the lease.

The Tenant’s Share of a Real Estate Tax Increase

New Hampshire allows the landlord to deduct the tenant’s share of an increase in the real estate taxes on the property where the lease obligates the tenant to pay that share. This is narrower than it sounds: it applies only when the written lease actually assigns the tenant a portion of a tax increase, and only to the increase, not the base tax. Like unpaid rent, a tax claim must specify the period for which it is made. The evidence is the tax bill showing the increase and the lease clause that shifts the share to