Free Pennsylvania Security Deposit Itemization Form

A Pennsylvania security deposit itemization form, called the itemized list of damages by the statute, is the written accounting a landlord delivers at the end of a tenancy showing exactly how the deposit was applied. Under the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951, 68 P.S. § 250.512, a landlord must provide that written list and return any remaining balance no later than 30 days after the tenancy ends and the tenant surrenders possession, and a landlord who misses that deadline forfeits the right to keep any of the deposit. Our Pennsylvania security deposit laws guide covers the wider framework, and the tenant screening laws by state hub helps you place tenants who return the unit clean in the first place.

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Video: a plain-language walkthrough of the Pennsylvania deposit itemization – the 30-day deadline under § 250.512, the forfeiture rule, the no-wear-and-tear standard, and the double-damages penalty.

Complete the form below to build an itemized list of damages ready to print, sign, and send. Enter the original deposit, add any interest owed on a deposit held past two years, itemize each deduction with a specific description, and the generator sums the deductions, subtracts them from the deposit, and calculates the refund due, or the balance the tenant still owes when deductions exceed the deposit. Every figure you enter flows straight into the dated PDF, and the running total updates as you type.

Pennsylvania treats the security deposit as the tenant’s money that the landlord holds, and the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951, codified at 68 P.S. § 250.512, is the statute that governs how and when it comes back. The single most important number is thirty. No later than 30 days after the termination of the lease or the surrender and acceptance of the premises, whichever first occurs, the landlord must provide the tenant with a written itemized list of any damages for which the deposit is being applied and must return the remaining balance. Miss that window and the landlord’s position collapses, because the statute does not merely inconvenience a late landlord; it takes away the right to keep anything at all.

The clock is triggered by the end of the tenancy, meaning the termination of the lease or the surrender of possession, not by the date the tenant hands over a forwarding address. That said, the forwarding address matters for a different reason, discussed below in the remedies section, so a tenant should always give one in writing. If the tenant gives up possession on the first of the month, the itemized list and the balance are due by the thirtieth. When no forwarding address is provided, the landlord sends the list and any balance to the tenant’s last known address, which is often the rental unit itself. A landlord who understands that the deadline runs from the end of the tenancy will start the inspection and the paperwork immediately, and our Pennsylvania move-in and move-out checklist is the upstream record that makes the accounting defensible.

The list itself is not a formality. It ties every dollar the landlord keeps to a described reason, and it is the document the landlord will hand a magisterial district judge if the deductions are ever challenged. A complete list states the original deposit, each deduction as a separate line item with a specific description and amount, the supporting receipts or estimates, and the refund balance. Because the itemization form here also prepares the accompanying balance, it keeps the two obligations that § 250.512 imposes, the list and the return of the balance, in a single document, and our Pennsylvania security deposit laws guide walks through the documentation practice in more detail.

68 P.S. § 250.512 does two things at once: it limits what a landlord may keep, and it imposes a severe consequence for a late or missing list. Understanding both halves is what separates a deduction that survives a challenge from one that is thrown out, or worse, that costs the landlord the entire deposit.

Permissible Deductions

The statute allows a landlord to apply the deposit to unpaid rent and to the reasonable cost of repairing damage to the premises caused by the tenant beyond ordinary wear and tear. Where the lease makes them recoverable, the deposit may also cover other tenant obligations such as unpaid utilities the tenant agreed to pay or contractual charges the lease specifies. Anything outside that list, such as routine turnover painting, ordinary carpet aging, or a charge dressed up as an administrative or re-rental fee, is not a lawful deduction, and the deposit may never be kept simply as a penalty for the tenancy ending.

Normal Wear and Tear Is Never Deductible

The line between damage and wear and tear decides most deposit disputes. Normal wear and tear is the gradual deterioration a unit suffers from ordinary living over the length of the tenancy: faded or lightly scuffed paint, carpet worn thin in the main walking paths, small nail holes from hanging pictures, and minor marks near light switches and door handles. Damage is harm beyond that ordinary use: large holes punched in drywall, carpet burns or pet-urine saturation, broken fixtures, unauthorized alterations, and filth left far below move-in condition. Only damage is chargeable, and the move-in and move-out condition records paired with dated photographs are the evidence that separates the two categories.

No Receipts-Dollar Threshold, But Document Everything

Unlike California, which triggers a receipts requirement once repairs and cleaning together exceed a set figure, Pennsylvania sets no dollar threshold in § 250.512. The statute simply requires the written itemized list of damages, and the defensible practice is to support every deduction with a receipt for completed work or a third-party estimate for work not yet performed, along with dated photographs. Where the landlord or the landlord’s own employee did the work, describe the work performed and charge a reasonable rate that the landlord can support. Because Pennsylvania courts construe deposit deductions strictly against the landlord, an undocumented deduction of any size is exposed, and the safest rule is that if a deduction is worth claiming, it is worth documenting.

The Deposit Caps and Interest Rule

The itemization comes at the end of the tenancy, but the size of the deposit is set at the start. Under 68 P.S. § 250.511a, the deposit may not exceed two months’ rent during the first year of the lease and may not exceed one month’s rent during the second and every following year. A landlord who collected two months up front must return the amount above one month at the start of the second year. Under 68 P.S. § 250.511b, a deposit of more than one hundred dollars held for more than two years must be placed in an insured institution and must earn interest, which begins to accrue in the twenty-fifth month; the landlord may retain 1% of the deposit per year as an administrative fee and pays the remaining interest to the tenant. The itemization form above includes an optional monthly-rent field so the generator can flag a deposit that appears to exceed the one-month cap that applies in the second year and beyond.

The deadlines and documentation rules would be toothless without a penalty, and 68 P.S. § 250.512 supplies two sharp ones. The first is forfeiture. Under § 250.512(b), a landlord who fails to provide the written itemized list of damages within 30 days forfeits all rights to withhold any portion of the deposit and forfeits the right to bring an action against the tenant for damages to the premises. A single missed deadline therefore does not merely delay the accounting; it can extinguish every deduction the landlord could otherwise have made and hand the entire deposit back to the tenant.

The second penalty is doubling. Under § 250.512(c), a landlord who fails to return the balance of the deposit together with the itemized list within 30 days is liable to the tenant for damages in a sum equal to double the amount by which the deposit exceeds the actual damages to the premises. The burden is on the landlord to prove the damages that justify any withholding. On a two-thousand-dollar deposit that the landlord kept without justification, a court can award the tenant four thousand dollars, a multiple that dwarfs almost any legitimate deduction and drives most disputes toward settlement.

There is one important limit that a tenant must respect. The double-damages remedy under § 250.512 depends on the tenant having provided a forwarding address in writing. A tenant who never gave the landlord a written address is not entitled to the doubled recovery, although the landlord still owes the itemized accounting. Tenants usually bring these claims in magisterial district court, Pennsylvania’s small-claims-level forum, where the filing is inexpensive and the landlord’s itemized list, or its absence, is the centerpiece of the case. For landlords, the itemized statement generated above is the cheapest insurance against both penalties, and our overview of how to screen tenants is the upstream control that reduces the odds of a contested move-out in the first place.

A recurring and avoidable Pennsylvania mistake is to split the two obligations § 250.512 imposes. The statute requires the landlord to provide the itemized list and return the balance within the same 30-day window, not to send a list first and hold the money pending the tenant’s agreement. Withholding the balance while waiting for the tenant to dispute or accept the accounting is itself a retention that can trigger the double-damages exposure, even if the individual deductions were sound. Prepare the list and the refund check together and deliver them in one envelope.

Delivery method matters for proof. The safest practice is certified mail with return receipt requested, sent to the tenant’s written forwarding address or, if none was given, to the last known address, which is frequently the rental unit. Email delivery of the list is only appropriate where the tenant has agreed to it in writing, and the balance itself must be a check or other negotiable instrument, never an emailed number. Retain a copy of the list, the receipts and estimates, the certified-mail receipt, and the condition records; if a dispute surfaces months later, that packet is the entire defense.

Count the thirty days carefully. The period runs in calendar days from the day the tenant surrenders possession, not from the lease’s stated end date and not from the day a forwarding address arrives. Because the postmark and the delivery are what a court will look at, the conservative practice is to treat the statement as due to be in the mail well before day thirty, so that a weekend, a holiday, or a slow postal week never pushes an otherwise-timely accounting past the deadline. A landlord who calendars the surrender date and works backward to a target mailing date near day twenty-five rarely misses the window, while a landlord who waits until the deadline is looming routinely does.

A defensible Pennsylvania itemization is built in a fixed order, and following that order keeps a landlord from missing the thirty-day deadline or leaving a deduction undocumented. The sequence below turns the statute’s requirements into a checklist.

Step 1 – Compare move-out condition to the move-in baseline

Walk the unit against the move-in condition record and dated move-in photographs. Every deduction under § 250.512 must trace to a specific difference between how the unit was handed over and how it was returned, minus ordinary wear. Without a move-in baseline, the landlord is arguing that a condition is damage rather than pre-existing wear with no evidence, and Pennsylvania courts resolve that ambiguity in the tenant’s favor.

Step 2 – Separate damage from normal wear and tear

Sort each observed condition into damage or wear. Faded paint, minor scuffing, small nail holes, and traffic-pattern carpet wear are wear and are not deductible. Large drywall holes, pet-urine saturation, burns, broken fixtures, and filth far below move-in cleanliness are damage and are chargeable. When a condition is genuinely borderline, the conservative choice protects the landlord from a bad-faith finding on the whole package.

Step 3 – Gather a receipt or estimate for every line

Because Pennsylvania sets no dollar threshold, obtain a paid receipt for completed work or a written third-party estimate for work not yet performed, for every single deduction. Where the landlord performs the work personally, record the work done, the time spent, and a reasonable hourly rate that the landlord can defend. Photograph the damaged item next to its move-in state.

Step 4 – Itemize each deduction specifically

Enter each deduction on its own line with a concrete description and amount. “Cleaning” is insufficient; “oven and range degreasing, eighty-five dollars, receipt attached from a cleaning service” is correct. The specificity is the difference between a deduction a judge can evaluate and one that is presumed against the landlord.

Step 5 – Calculate and show the math

Add the deductions, add any interest owed to the tenant on a deposit held past two years, subtract the deductions from the deposit, and state whether a balance is returned to the tenant or the tenant owes an additional amount. Show the arithmetic on the statement; do not hand the tenant only a bottom-line figure.

Step 6 – Deliver the list and the balance within thirty days

Send the itemized list and the refund check together, by certified mail with return receipt requested, to the written forwarding address or the last known address. Calendar the deadline from the day the tenant surrendered possession and deliver by day twenty-five to leave mailing margin.

Step 7 – Retain the file

Keep the itemized list, receipts, estimates, photographs, condition records, and proof of delivery. Most disputes proceed in magisterial district court, where the documentation packet is effectively the whole case, and a landlord who cannot produce the file usually loses even on valid deductions.

A complete Pennsylvania itemized statement under § 250.512 contains a fixed set of elements. The builder above captures each one, and knowing the list helps a landlord confirm nothing is missing before the envelope goes out.

Parties and property

The landlord’s name and mailing address, the tenant’s name and forwarding or last-known address, and the full address of the rental unit, including the unit number, so the statement is unambiguous about which tenancy it accounts for.

Tenancy dates and deposit

The tenancy start date and the move-out or surrender date, which together fix both the deposit cap that applied and the thirty-day clock, plus the original security deposit amount and any interest owed on a deposit held longer than two years.

Itemized deductions and calculation

Each deduction as a separate line with a specific description and amount, the total of the deductions, and the resulting balance returned to the tenant, or the additional amount owed by the tenant when deductions exceed the deposit. The math should appear on the face of the statement.

Attached documentation

Receipts for completed work and estimates for work not yet performed for every deduction, plus dated photographs of the damage. Photographs are not expressly required by the statute, but they carry most litigated deposit disputes and are routine in any contested case. Reference and attach the move-in and move-out checklists when available.

Delivery and signature

The method and date of delivery, the forwarding or last-known address used, and the landlord’s signature with printed name and title. Certified mail with return receipt requested is the delivery record that proves timely compliance if the tenant later claims the statement never arrived.