Free North Dakota Security Deposit Itemization Statement

A North Dakota Security Deposit Itemization Statement is the written, line-by-line accounting a landlord must furnish whenever any part of a security deposit is applied rather than returned. Under N.D.C.C. Section 47-16-07.1, any portion of the deposit the landlord keeps must be itemized, and that itemization, together with the amount due and written notice, must be delivered or mailed to the tenant at the last address furnished within thirty days after the lease terminates and the tenant delivers possession. Because North Dakota holds the deposit in an interest-bearing account, the accounting starts from the deposit plus any interest owed. Withhold money without reasonable justification, and the landlord is liable for treble damages. This statement is different from the cover return letter: it is the detailed deduction schedule the letter transmits.

Complete the builder below to generate a state-compliant North Dakota Security Deposit Itemization Statement, ready to print, sign, and send by certified mail with any refund due. Enter the deposit held and any interest owed, itemize each deduction with its specific description and the evidence backing it, and the generator adds the interest to the deposit, subtracts the total deductions, and computes the refund balance automatically — both live on the page and in the downloaded PDF. It also handles the case where documented deductions exceed the deposit and the tenant owes an additional balance.

Watch: North Dakota Security Deposit Itemization Statement explained

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A North Dakota Security Deposit Itemization Statement is the written schedule of deductions a landlord must produce whenever any portion of a deposit is kept at the end of a tenancy. It is the substance behind the North Dakota return letter: the letter is the cover transmittal, and the itemization is the line-by-line accounting it carries. Under N.D.C.C. Section 47-16-07.1, any portion of a deposit the landlord applies rather than returns must be itemized, and that itemization, together with the amount due, must be delivered or mailed to the tenant with written notice within thirty days after termination of the lease and delivery of possession. The statute does not treat that itemization as optional paperwork; it treats it as the record that shows a withholding was reasonably justified.

The stakes are high in North Dakota because the statute pairs a firm deadline with a stiff penalty. A landlord who withholds any deposit money without reasonable justification is liable for treble damages — three times the amount wrongfully withheld. Layered on top of that penalty is the interest rule: because the deposit sits in a federally insured interest-bearing account, a tenant of nine months or longer is owed the interest as well as the principal, and forgetting it understates what the tenant is due. A careless or missing itemization is therefore not a clerical slip; it can convert a legitimate deduction into a treble-damage exposure and shortchange the tenant on interest the law says is theirs.

Because the itemization is where the landlord shows the withholding was justified, its quality decides most deposit disputes before they ever reach a courtroom. A statement that names each charge, ties it to a specific damaged or unclean item, states an amount, and attaches the invoice, estimate, or receipt behind it gives a tenant little to argue with. A statement that lists a single lump sum with no description and no document invites the opposite result. This page builds the strong version: an itemized, evidence-anchored statement that computes the deposit-plus-interest math for you and prints ready to sign.

The spine of Section 47-16-07.1 is a single deadline: the itemization, together with the amount due, must be delivered or mailed to the tenant within thirty days after termination of the lease and delivery of possession by the tenant. The statement and the refund travel together, so at thirty days the landlord must have both the accounting and any money owed in the mail. Thirty days is a middle-of-the-road deposit clock nationally, but North Dakota measures it from two events that must both occur: the lease must have terminated, and the tenant must have delivered possession.

The clock is tied to termination and the surrender of possession, not to the tenant’s supplying a forwarding address. The statute directs the landlord to send the statement to the last address the tenant furnished, which means a landlord should preserve whatever address the tenant last gave and use it, rather than wait indefinitely for a new forwarding address before preparing the itemization. A landlord who lets thirty days pass while waiting for a better address risks a late statement and the treble exposure that follows an unjustified withholding. The safest practice is to treat the day possession is delivered as day one, confirm the last address on file, and mail the statement and any refund well before day thirty.

Section 47-16-07.1 is specific about the mechanics. When a landlord applies any part of the deposit rather than returning it, that application must be itemized by the lessor, and the itemization, together with the amount due and a written notice, must be delivered or mailed to the tenant at the last address furnished. The itemization is, in other words, the written account that justifies each dollar kept — not a bare demand for money. Because the penalty for withholding without reasonable justification is treble damages, the itemization doubles as the landlord’s evidence file.

That is why the builder above pairs every deduction line with a description field and an evidence field. Each line should name what was damaged or cleaned, state why the charge was necessary, give the amount, and identify the document that proves the cost — an invoice number, an estimate, or a receipt. Vague, lump-sum entries are the ones most easily attacked as lacking reasonable justification, which is the exact finding that triggers the treble penalty. A landlord who itemizes tightly and attaches the paper behind each figure gives a reviewing court nothing to disallow.

The permitted deductions themselves come from the statute’s list of purposes for which a deposit may be applied. The generator lays out the accounting in a clean order: the deposit actually held, plus any interest owed to the tenant, minus the itemized, evidence-backed deductions, equals the refund balance owed — or the balance the tenant owes when documented deductions run higher than the deposit and interest combined.

Section 47-16-07.1 sets out the purposes for which a North Dakota deposit may be applied. Every line on a defensible itemization should map to one of these categories, and each maps naturally to a kind of written evidence:

• Damage from the tenant’s negligence. Deterioration or injury to the property caused by the tenant’s negligence — a hole punched in drywall, a cracked window, a burned countertop — is deductible. Back it with a repair invoice or a contractor’s estimate, and describe the specific item and location.
• Pet damage. Deterioration or injury caused by the tenant’s pet — scratched doors, urine-soaked subfloor — may be charged, ideally against any pet deposit first. Document with a treatment or repair invoice.
• Unpaid rent. Rent that came due and was not paid may be deducted. Attach the rent ledger showing the unpaid month or partial balance, and state the period covered.
• Cleaning to restore the original state. The cost of cleaning that was the tenant’s responsibility, necessary to return the unit to its original state when the tenant took possession, is deductible — reasonable wear and tear excepted. Keep receipts for supplies and equipment, or the cleaning company’s invoice.
• Other repairs that were the tenant’s responsibility. Repairs the tenant was obligated to make and did not, needed to return the unit to move-in condition, may be charged, documented like any other repair.
• Unreturned keys and re-keying. Where returning the unit to its original state requires replacing keys the tenant failed to return or re-keying the unit, that cost may be charged. A locksmith receipt is the evidence.

Two things landlords sometimes try to slip onto an itemization are not allowed: ordinary wear and tear, and charges that fit none of the statutory purposes. Both are addressed below, because both are the fastest route from a justified deduction to an unjustified one that a court can treble.

Section 47-16-07.1 limits the base security deposit to an amount or value not exceeding one month’s rent. North Dakota then carves out two exceptions that matter at itemization time because they change how much the landlord is accounting for. First, a landlord may accept up to two months’ rent as security from an individual convicted of a felony offense, as an incentive to rent to that individual. Second, a landlord may charge a pet security deposit — for an animal that is not a service or companion animal required as a reasonable accommodation under fair-housing law — not exceeding the greater of two thousand five hundred dollars or an amount equivalent to two months’ rent.

The cap and its exceptions matter at move-out as much as at move-in, which is why the builder captures the base deposit and any pet deposit as separate figures and adds them into the total the generator accounts for. A landlord who held a pet deposit should apply pet-related damage against it and show that on the statement. A landlord who over-collected beyond the applicable cap must still account for the full amount actually held; the excess is refundable, and an over-collection undercuts the landlord’s credibility if the accounting is ever challenged. Entering the monthly rent lets you sanity-check the deposit you held against the one-month base cap — or the two-month felony ceiling — before you send the statement.

North Dakota is one of the states that requires a landlord to hold the security deposit in an interest-bearing account, and the interest belongs to the tenant. Section 47-16-07.1 directs the landlord to deposit the money in a federally insured interest-bearing savings or checking account. The practical consequence is that the deposit accounting does not start from the raw dollars collected; it starts from the deposit plus whatever interest has accrued for the tenant’s benefit over the life of the tenancy.

There is one carve-out, and it is worth getting right. A landlord is not required to pay interest on a deposit if the period of occupancy was less than nine months. For any tenancy of nine months or longer, the accrued interest is owed and must be added to the deposit before deductions are subtracted. That is why the builder asks both for the interest owed and for the months of occupancy: enter the interest figure when the tenancy ran nine months or more, and leave it at zero when occupancy was under nine months. The generator adds the interest to the deposit so the refund reflects the full amount the tenant is due, which is the number a court will expect to see if the accounting is ever tested.

North Dakota, like every state, makes the landlord bear the cost of ordinary wear and tear. The statute allows cleaning and repair charges only to the extent necessary to return the unit to its original state when the tenant took possession, reasonable wear and tear excepted. Wear and tear is the deterioration a rental undergoes from intended, everyday use — the gradual aging every unit experiences regardless of who lives there. Faded paint, minor scuffs, carpet flattened along a normal traffic path, and small nail holes from hanging pictures are classic wear and tear. They are the cost of doing business as a landlord, not a chargeable loss, and they may not appear as a line on the itemization.

Damage is different. Deterioration caused by the tenant’s negligence, or by the tenant’s pet, may be charged — a cigarette burn in the carpet, a hole punched in drywall, a broken window, or pet urine soaked into the subfloor. The dividing line matters because a landlord who dresses up ordinary wear as damage and deducts for it is withholding money the statute does not allow, which is precisely the kind of withholding a court can find lacked reasonable justification and treble. North Dakota’s hard winters accelerate ordinary aging of paint, weatherstripping, and exterior fixtures, so landlords should be careful not to bill a departing tenant for deterioration the climate would have produced anyway. When a line item is genuinely a judgment call, prorate for the item’s useful life and document the reasoning on the statement rather than charging full replacement cost.

North Dakota pairs its deadline with a stiff remedy, and it is why the itemization is worth doing carefully. Under Section 47-16-07.1, a lessor is liable for treble damages for any security deposit money withheld without reasonable justification. Read the words carefully: the treble exposure runs on the amount withheld without justification, so a landlord who keeps money he knew was not reasonably owed can face three times that amount. The tenant does not have to prove an additional out-of-pocket loss beyond the wrongfully withheld deposit to recover the multiplier — the statute supplies it.

The phrase that decides the case is reasonable justification. A good-faith, well-documented itemization that a court later trims is not the same as a bad-faith refusal to return money the landlord knew was owed. A landlord who itemized carefully, attached the paper, added the tenant’s interest, and mailed on time is very hard to paint as having withheld without justification, even if a court trims a figure or two. A landlord who withheld a round number with no statement, or who charged obvious wear and tear, hands the tenant the argument that the retention was unjustified — and with it the treble multiplier.

Because the penalty turns on justification, the landlord’s own documentation is on trial. The best defense is a timely statement with a specific, evidence-backed itemization and the interest correctly added. For the broader framework, see the comprehensive North Dakota security deposit laws guide, and prepare the upstream documentation with the North Dakota Move-In / Move-Out Inspection Checklist.

Because the thirty-day deadline runs from termination of the lease and delivery of possession, North Dakota landlords need a clear, dated record of both events. Termination is the end of the lease term or its earlier lawful ending; delivery of possession means the tenant has given up the unit — typically evidenced by returned keys, an empty unit, a written move-out notice, or an abandoned tenancy. The safest practice is to fix the surrender date the moment keys are returned and to confirm it in writing to the tenant, so there is no later dispute about when the clock began.

The last address furnished is where the statement and any refund go. The statute directs the landlord to deliver or mail the itemization to the last address the tenant furnished, so a landlord should preserve every address the tenant provided during the tenancy and use the most recent one. Ask departing tenants for a current mailing address at move-out and preserve the reply — email counts — with its timestamp. North Dakota does not suspend the thirty-day count while waiting for a better address, so a landlord with only an older address must still act on time: send the statement and refund to that last furnished address by certified mail and document the good-faith effort rather than let the deadline lapse.

Keep two questions distinct on the statement: what rent or charges the tenant owes, and what the deposit accounting shows. Any unpaid rent belongs on the itemization as a documented deduction line, not as an informal offset that never appears on paper. An itemization that reflects the true deposit math — deposit plus interest, minus each described and evidenced deduction — is far easier to defend than a silent retention or an off-the-books adjustment.

The strength of a North Dakota itemization rises and falls on its documentation. Because the penalty for an unjustified withholding is treble damages, every deduction should carry proof of reasonable justification: a contractor invoice, a store receipt for materials, a cleaning company bill, or dated photographs showing the damage next to the move-in condition. A well-run file pairs each line item on the statement with a corresponding exhibit, so that if the tenant sues, the landlord can show the deduction was a real, quantified, tenant-caused cost rather than an estimate pulled from the air or a disguised wear-and-tear charge.

When a tenant disputes a deduction, respond in writing and reference the specific line item and its supporting document. Many disputes evaporate once the tenant sees the receipt and the photo. Where a charge is a genuine judgment call — a carpet with three years of useful life left, replaced after five years of use — proration protects the landlord: charge only the depreciated value attributable to the tenant’s damage, and explain the calculation on the statement. Because a withholding a court finds unjustified is trebled, the economics almost always favor a documented, reasonable itemization over an aggressive one.

It helps to see the accounting run end to end. Suppose a landlord held a base deposit of one thousand two hundred dollars and a pet deposit of three hundred dollars, for one thousand five hundred dollars in principal, and the tenancy ran fourteen months, so forty dollars of interest accrued in the interest-bearing account for the tenant. The total the landlord must account for is one thousand five hundred forty dollars. At move-out the landlord, walking the unit against a dated move-in checklist, finds three chargeable problems: drywall the tenant punched through in the north bedroom, repaired for four hundred dollars against a contractor invoice; a living-room carpet the tenant’s dog soiled, professionally treated for one hundred fifty dollars against a cleaning receipt; and one unpaid week of rent, three hundred dollars, shown on the rent ledger. Faded hallway paint and a lightly worn traffic path in the carpet are left off the statement entirely, because they are ordinary wear and tear the landlord must absorb.

The itemization lists three lines: drywall repair, four hundred dollars, invoice attached; carpet treatment, one hundred fifty dollars, receipt attached; unpaid rent, three hundred dollars, ledger attached. The deductions total eight hundred fifty dollars. Subtracted from the one thousand five hundred forty dollars held and owed, the refund balance owed to the tenant is six hundred ninety dollars, and a check for that amount is enclosed with the signed statement. Because the pet damage is charged and a pet deposit was held, the landlord notes that the dog-related treatment is applied first against the pet deposit, which keeps the categories clean if the tenant later questions the pet-deposit accounting.

Now run the harder case, where the documented damage exceeds the deposit. Suppose the landlord held one thousand dollars in principal, owed no interest because occupancy was under nine months, and the tenant left behind nine hundred dollars of repairs and four hundred dollars of unpaid rent, one thousand three hundred dollars of documented deductions. The refund balance is zero, and the statement shows an additional three hundred dollars the tenant owes, each figure backed by its exhibit. The landlord cannot simply keep the deposit and move on; the itemized statement is still mandatory, and it is also the foundation for any collection action on the remaining three hundred dollars. The generator on this page produces both outcomes automatically, switching the on-page and PDF label from a refund owed to the tenant to a balance owed by the tenant the moment the deductions cross the deposit plus interest.

Some of the most common North Dakota deposit disputes turn not on whether an item was damaged but on how much the landlord may charge for it. The governing idea is that a deposit deduction compensates the landlord for the tenant’s damage, not for an upgrade. When a tenant destroys an item that was already partway through its useful life, the fair charge is the item’s remaining depreciated value, not the full cost of a brand-new replacement. Charging full replacement cost for a partly worn item is one of the fastest ways a justified deduction gets recharacterized as one without reasonable justification.

The mechanics are simple arithmetic. Take the item’s reasonable useful life, subtract the years it was already in service, and charge only the fraction of the replacement cost that corresponds to the remaining life the tenant’s damage destroyed. A carpet with a ten-year useful life, damaged beyond repair after it had already been down for six years, has four years of life left; if replacement runs one thousand dollars, the depreciated charge attributable to the tenant is roughly four hundred dollars, not the full thousand. Interior paint, window screens, and appliances each carry their own reasonable service lives, and North Dakota’s harsh winters shorten several of them, which cuts in the tenant’s favor when a landlord tries to bill full price for a fixture the cold and dryness had already been degrading for years.

On the itemization, show the proration rather than hiding it. A line that reads carpet replacement, prorated for four of ten remaining years, four hundred dollars, invoice attached tells a reviewing judge that the landlord charged the depreciated value and understood the rule. A line that simply reads new carpet, one thousand dollars invites the tenant to argue the landlord used the deposit to fund a capital improvement at the tenant’s expense. The extra sentence of explanation costs nothing and converts a contestable charge into a defensible one.

North Dakota routes most deposit disputes to small claims court, a forum designed to be fast, inexpensive, and accessible without a lawyer. That accessibility cuts both ways: it is easy for a tenant to file over a disputed deduction, so a landlord’s best protection is a statement so well documented that the case is effectively decided before the hearing. The tenant will typically claim the withheld amount and ask the court to treble it under Section 47-16-07.1 on the ground that it was withheld without reasonable justification.

At the hearing, the itemization is the landlord’s exhibit list in miniature. Each line the landlord can back with an invoice, an estimate, a receipt, or a dated photograph is a line the court can allow with confidence; each line resting on a bare assertion is a line the court can find unjustified. If the court concludes the landlord withheld deposit money without reasonable justification, it can award the tenant three times that amount — a powerful multiplier that exists precisely to deter landlords from keeping money they have no reasonable basis to keep. A landlord who also forgot the tenant’s interest compounds the problem, because the missing interest is itself an amount withheld without justification.

The justification line is where good documentation earns its keep. A landlord who itemized carefully, prorated fairly, added the interest, attached the paper, and mailed on time is very hard to paint as having withheld unreasonably, even if the court trims a figure or two. A landlord who withheld a round number with no statement, or who charged obvious wear and tear, hands the tenant the argument on a plate. Keep the file complete and the accounting honest, and the treble multiplier stays a deterrent aimed at someone else.

Deposit obligations follow the property, not just the original owner. A successor in interest — a buyer, a foreclosing lender, or a new manager who takes over the rental — steps into the duty to account to the tenant for the deposit credited to the tenancy, along with any interest that has accrued. A landlord buying an occupied North Dakota rental should therefore confirm in writing, at closing, exactly what deposits and accrued interest are held and obtain the funds or a credit, because the new owner inherits the duty to return or itemize them when the tenancy ends. A buyer who fails to run down the deposit ledger can find itself on the hook for money, and interest, it never actually received.

Record-keeping is the other half of a defensible practice. A deposit dispute can surface long after the tenant has moved on, so keep the signed itemization, every supporting invoice, estimate, and receipt, the interest calculation, the move-in and move-out checklists and photographs, the last-address correspondence, and the certified-mail receipt for at least six years from the end of the tenancy. A landlord who can pull the complete file years later — the statement, the exhibits behind each line, the interest math, and the proof of timely mailing — is in a commanding position; a landlord relying on memory is not.

• Blowing the thirty-day deadline. The clock runs from termination of the lease and delivery of possession, not from when a new forwarding address arrives. A late statement paired with a withholding invites a finding that the retention lacked reasonable justification.
• Forgetting the tenant’s interest. For a tenancy of nine months or longer, the interest in the federally insured account belongs to the tenant and must be added to the deposit; omitting it understates the refund and is itself an amount withheld without justification.
• Listing lump sums with no detail. A single cleaning or repair figure with no description and no receipt is the easiest kind of deduction to attack as unjustified; each line needs a specific description and a supporting document.
• Charging for normal wear and tear. Deducting for faded paint or ordinary carpet wear converts a lawful itemization into a potentially unjustified retention the court can treble.
• Deducting outside the statutory purposes. Only tenant negligence or pet damage, unpaid rent, and cleaning or repairs necessary to restore the original state are chargeable; a charge that fits none of them does not belong on the statement.
• Over-collecting the deposit. Taking more than one month’s rent as a base deposit — outside the felony and pet-deposit exceptions — violates the cap; the excess is refundable and must still be accounted for.
• Keeping the deposit silently when deductions exceed it. Even when the refund balance is zero, the itemized statement is still required, and the tenant may owe an additional documented balance.

• Section 47-16-07.1 (deposit account) — A landlord who requires a security deposit must hold the money in a federally insured interest-bearing savings or checking account.
• Section 47-16-07.1 (base cap) — A landlord may not demand or receive security in excess of one month’s rent.
• Section 47-16-07.1 (felony exception) — A landlord may accept up to two months’ rent as security from an individual convicted of a felony offense, as an incentive to rent to that individual.
• Section 47-16-07.1 (pet deposit) — A pet security deposit, for an animal that is not a service or companion animal required as a reasonable accommodation, may not exceed the greater of two thousand five hundred dollars or an amount equivalent to two months’ rent.
• Section 47-16-07.1 (permitted deductions) — The deposit may be applied toward damage from the tenant’s pet or negligence, unpaid rent, and cleaning or other repairs that were the tenant’s responsibility and are necessary to return the unit to its original state, reasonable wear and tear excepted.
• Section 47-16-07.1 (itemization and 30-day deadline) — Any amount applied must be itemized, and the itemization with the amount due and written notice must be delivered or mailed to the tenant at the last address furnished within thirty days after termination of the lease and delivery of possession.
• Section 47-16-07.1 (interest exception) — A landlord is not required to pay interest on a deposit if the period of occupancy was less than nine months.
• Section 47-16-07.1 (treble damages) — A landlord is liable for treble damages for any security deposit money withheld without reasonable justification.

Always confirm the current text before relying on it; verify N.D.C.C. Section 47-16-07.1 at the North Dakota Legislative Branch Century Code.

• Document condition at both ends of the tenancy with a dated move-in and move-out checklist and photographs, so every deduction traces to a documented change.
• Calendar day thirty the moment the lease terminates and the tenant delivers possession, and mail the statement and refund several days early to be safe.
• Add the tenant’s accrued interest to the deposit for any tenancy of nine months or longer before subtracting deductions, so the refund reflects the full amount owed.
• Pair every line item with its evidence — an invoice, an estimate, or a receipt — so each deduction shows the reasonable justification the statute requires, and reference the document on the statement itself.
• Send the itemization to the last address the tenant furnished by certified mail, return receipt requested, together with the North Dakota return letter as the cover, to create dated proof you met the deadline.
• Prorate replacement costs for the item’s useful life rather than charging full price for a partially worn item, and note the calculation on the line.
• Keep the signed statement, the itemization, supporting documentation, the interest math, and the mailing receipt for at least six years.
• Never charge for wear and tear, never over-collect beyond the one-month cap, and never keep a deposit you know is owed — the penalty for a withholding without reasonable justification is treble damages.

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