Free Vermont Holding Deposit Agreement

A holding deposit is money a prospective tenant pays to take a unit off the market before a lease is signed. No section recorded for this page regulates it as such. What Vermont has is 9 V.S.A. § 4461, captioned “Security deposits”, and a definition in subsection (a) that decides how far that section reaches. It reaches any deposit “however named”, which is a phrase written to defeat labels. It reaches only money “refundable to the tenant”, which is a phrase that presupposes a rental agreement — and under § 4451(8) a rental agreement may be oral. Between those two phrases sits every holding deposit paid in the state, and the section does not say on which side a given one lands. This page sets out the text, states the conditional honestly, says where the statute is silent, and produces a record of what the parties said about the one fact the statute turns on — whether, when the money was paid, they had agreed to rent — which is evidence a court would weigh, not a finding.

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. No section recorded for this page prescribes a holding-deposit document or regulates a holding deposit as such, so a document captioned as though it satisfied one would claim something 9 V.S.A. § 4461 does not say. What the record does is fix the facts the statute makes decisive: who paid what, for which unit, on what date, whether the parties had by then agreed to rent, and what each side undertook to do with the money in each outcome. It is built around the conditional in § 4461(a) rather than around a rule the section does not contain. Three limits belong on the page rather than in the form. First, the record does not decide whether a rental agreement was formed — it records what the parties said, and a court would decide what that amounted to; case law on that point was not researched for this page. Second, § 4461(g) permits a town or municipality to adopt a supplemental ordinance and to authorise interest, and no municipal ordinance was researched here. Third, the text relied on is the General Assembly’s online publication, which describes itself as “an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience”; the section was accepted on the caption in its own body and on operative words that a fabricated control section did not contain, because that host returns a page for section numbers that do not exist.

• Because § 4461 does not decide whether a holding deposit is a security deposit, the record’s job is to fix the facts on which that would be decided. Three carry the weight; the full item-by-item inventory is set out below, under “What should a Vermont holding deposit record contain?”.
• Whether the parties had agreed to rent when the money was paid, in terms. A tenant under § 4451(10) is “a person entitled under a rental agreement to occupy”, and under § 4451(8) that agreement may be “written or oral”. This line is the one the whole section turns on.
• The amount, the date, the method of payment, the unit and the parties — and what happens to the money in each outcome. Vermont sets no cap, so the figure is whatever was paid, but it must be recorded exactly, because § 4461(e) doubles “the amount wrongfully withheld”; and § 4461 supplies no term at all for an applicant or a landlord who withdraws.

• Each of these is a mistake because § 4461 leaves the question open, not because the section decides it either way — the error in every case is treating one branch of the conditional as settled.
• Calling it a “holding fee” and assuming the label takes it outside § 4461. Subsection (a) reaches any deposit “however named”. The name does no work.
• Saying holding deposits are unregulated in Vermont. The definition reaches them by label; only the word “tenant” can exclude them, and a rental agreement under § 4451(8) may be oral.
• Saying the security-deposit rules apply to every holding deposit. The definition is confined to money “refundable to the tenant”, and an applicant who walks away before any agreement is not, on the text, a tenant.
• Agreeing to rent by phone and believing nothing binds until the lease is signed. § 4451(8) defines a rental agreement to include one that is “written or oral”.
• Charging an application fee alongside the deposit. § 4456a(a) provides that a landlord “shall not charge an application fee to any individual in order to apply to enter into a rental agreement for a residential dwelling unit”.
• Marking the payment non-refundable. Subsection (a) defines a security deposit by refundability, and whether a non-refundable holding payment is an “application fee” under § 4456a(a) is not answered by the text. The page does not assert either answer; it flags the exposure.
• Importing a cap from another state. Vermont sets none. Any figure printed as a Vermont limit was borrowed.
• Missing the 14-day period once a tenancy existed. Under (e), no return and statement within 14 days means the landlord “forfeits the right to withhold any portion”.
• Withholding wilfully. (e) sets the price at “double the amount wrongfully withheld, plus reasonable attorney’s fees and costs”.
• Ignoring the town. § 4461(g) lets a municipality adopt a supplemental ordinance and authorise interest. None was researched for this page, and the state section may not be the whole rule.

No. Vermont has a security-deposit section, 9 V.S.A. § 4461, and the question is whether its definition reaches money paid before a rental agreement exists. The section is captioned “Security deposits” and its history line shows it was added in 1985 and amended in 1987, 1991 and 2007. It never uses the word “prospective” or the word “applicant”; the whole section was searched for both. What it has instead is a definition, and the definition is written in a way that makes the category irrelevant and the timing decisive.

“A security deposit is any advance, deposit, or prepaid rent, however named, which is refundable to the tenant at the termination or expiration of the tenancy. The function of a security deposit is to secure the performance of a tenant’s obligations to pay rent and to maintain a dwelling unit.” — § 4461(a)

Two phrases in the first sentence do all the work, and they point in opposite directions. The rest of this page is an account of what each one does to a holding deposit, and of the space between them that the statute leaves open.

It removes the label as a defence. Iowa defines a rental deposit, and Mississippi any payment or deposit of money, by function — money that secures performance of a rental agreement — and a landlord in those states can at least argue that a payment made to hold a unit does something different. Vermont’s first sentence does not start from function. It starts from form: “any advance, deposit, or prepaid rent”. Then it closes the obvious escape in three words: “however named”.

The practical consequence is that a Vermont receipt reading “holding fee”, “reservation deposit”, “good-faith payment” or “earnest money” is no further from § 4461 than one reading “security deposit”. A holding deposit is an advance or a deposit by any ordinary reading, and the statute says its name does not matter. That is why this page does not spend time on drafting a label that keeps the money out. There is none.

The second sentence of (a) is worth noticing here, though it settles nothing. It describes the “function” of a security deposit as securing “a tenant’s obligations to pay rent and to maintain a dwelling unit”. A holding deposit is paid before any such obligation exists; its function, at the moment it is paid, is to keep the unit off the market. Whether that second sentence narrows the first — so that money paid for a different function is not a security deposit — or simply describes what a security deposit is for, is not something the text says. This page records the sentence and does not decide the point.

Because the definition reaches only money “refundable to the tenant at the termination or expiration of the tenancy”, and a tenant is defined by reference to a rental agreement. 9 V.S.A. § 4451(10) defines a tenant as “a person entitled under a rental agreement to occupy”. An applicant who has been shown a unit and paid to hold it while the landlord finishes screening is not yet entitled to occupy anything. On the literal text, money paid by that person is not “refundable to the tenant” because there is no tenant, and it is not refundable “at the termination or expiration of the tenancy” because there is no tenancy. Read that way, § 4461 does not reach the money.

Then § 4451(8) reopens the door. A rental agreement in Vermont includes one that is “written or oral”. A rental agreement can therefore exist before a lease is signed. If the landlord tells the applicant the unit is theirs and the applicant says they will take it, the parties may have made an oral rental agreement on the spot, the applicant may at that moment be “a person entitled under a rental agreement to occupy”, and a deposit paid in the same conversation may be “refundable to the tenant” and inside § 4461 in full.

The statute does not say which of those two descriptions fits a given holding deposit. It is a question of when an agreement to rent was formed, and that is a question of contract law answered by courts. No case law was researched for this page. What the page can say is the conditional, stated plainly: if there was a rental agreement — written or oral — when the money was paid, the deposit may be a security deposit and every rule in § 4461 may attach; if there was not, the section by its terms does not reach the money, and no other section recorded for this page does.

At the latest, when the applicant signs and moves in and the money is applied to the security deposit. Possibly much earlier, and the statute does not say when. It helps to separate three moments.

The first is the ordinary, happy case. The applicant pays to hold the unit, the lease is signed, the applicant takes possession, and the holding deposit is credited against the security deposit. From that point there is no conditional at all: the money is an advance or deposit, however named, refundable to a tenant at the end of a tenancy. Subsection (c)’s 14-day return period and subsection (e)’s forfeiture and doubling apply to it exactly as they apply to any other security deposit in Vermont. A landlord who credits a holding deposit to the security deposit should record that it has been so credited, because the record of what was paid and when is what (e) measures “the amount wrongfully withheld” against.

The second moment is the one the statute leaves open. The applicant pays to hold the unit and no lease is ever signed. Whether the money was ever a security deposit depends on whether, when it was paid, there was already a rental agreement — and § 4451(8) means that agreement can be oral. The parties’ words at the moment of payment decide it, and nothing in § 4461 tells anyone how to characterise those words.

The third moment is the one the landlord controls. Because the decisive fact is what the parties had agreed when the money moved, a landlord who writes down at that moment whether an agreement to rent has been reached — “the landlord is holding the unit until [date] while screening is completed; no agreement to rent has yet been made”, or the opposite — has produced evidence a court would weigh. It does not fix the fact; a court would decide what the parties’ words amounted to. The statute does not require that record.

No. 9 V.S.A. § 4461 sets no limit on the amount of a security deposit, so there is no ceiling to apply to a holding deposit whether or not it is one. This is worth stating flatly because most of the other six states do cap security deposits, and a page that prints a “one month” or “two months” figure for Vermont has taken it from somewhere else. The Vermont section contains no such figure. Vermont’s section limits what happens to the money, not how much of it there is.

No cap does not mean no constraint. Three things still shape the amount in practice. First, § 4461(a) defines a security deposit by its refundability, so whatever is taken is money the landlord expects to give back. Second, § 4461(e) doubles “the amount wrongfully withheld” where the withholding is wilful, so a larger deposit is a larger exposure. Third, § 4456a(a) bars an application fee outright, and a holding deposit sized or structured so that part of it is kept regardless of outcome invites the question whether that part is an application fee by another name — a question the text does not answer and this page does not answer for it.

The statute is silent, and the honest answer has two branches. 9 V.S.A. § 4461 contains no provision about an applicant who pays to hold a unit and then declines to sign. The words “prospective” and “applicant” do not appear in it. What happens to the money depends on the same fact as everything else on this page: whether a rental agreement existed when it was paid.

If no rental agreement had been made — the landlord was holding the unit while screening continued, and neither side had committed — then on the literal text of (a) the applicant was never a tenant and the money was never a security deposit. § 4461 does not by its terms govern its return or its retention, and no other section recorded for this page does. The statute supplies no rule for that event; whether a retention or forfeiture term would be enforced is a contract question not researched here. The page does not say the landlord may keep it and does not say the landlord must return it; the statute says neither.

If a rental agreement had been made — even orally, under § 4451(8) — then the applicant was a tenant, the money was a security deposit “however named”, and (a) says it is “refundable to the tenant”. The difficulty is that (c)’s return period runs “from the date on which the landlord discovers that the tenant vacated or abandoned”, language written for a tenant who took possession. A tenant who never moved in has not vacated in the ordinary sense. Whether an applicant who agreed to rent and then withdrew has “abandoned” the unit for the purposes of (c) is not something the section says. What (e) says is that a landlord who fails to return the deposit with a statement within 14 days “forfeits the right to withhold any portion”, and that a wilful failure costs “double the amount wrongfully withheld, plus reasonable attorney’s fees and costs”. A landlord in this branch who keeps the deposit as compensation for the withdrawal is relying on a right to withhold that would forfeit under (e) if and when (c)’s clock is found to have run.

Two further points belong here. Whether an oral agreement to rent is a “rental agreement” for the purposes of these sections, and when such an agreement is formed, are questions for a court; no case law was researched. And § 4456a(a) bars a landlord from charging “an application fee to any individual in order to apply to enter into a rental agreement”. Whether a holding payment kept from an applicant who applied and withdrew would be treated as such a fee is not answered by the text and is not asserted here. It is flagged because that is where the exposure would sit, if it sits anywhere.

The statute is silent on this too. Nothing in the subsections of 9 V.S.A. § 4461 extracted for this page — (a), (c), (e), (g) — addresses a landlord who accepts a holding deposit and then rents the unit to someone else, withdraws it from the market, or declines the applicant after all. In those subsections the mechanism for money in the landlord’s hands is return: (a) defines the deposit as “refundable to the tenant”, (c) sets the period, and (e) penalises failure. Nothing in (a), (c), (e) or (g) gives a withdrawing landlord a right to retain; (b), (d) and (f) were not extracted.

If a rental agreement had been formed — and again § 4451(8) means it may have been formed orally — the applicant was a tenant and the money was a security deposit. A landlord who backs out and keeps it is withholding a security deposit with no basis in (a) for doing so, and (e) sets the price for withholding wilfully. Whether the landlord’s withdrawal from an oral rental agreement gives the applicant any further remedy beyond return of the deposit is a question of contract, not of § 4461, and was not researched.

If no rental agreement had been formed, § 4461 does not reach the money by its terms, and the statute supplies no rule for return; whether a retention or forfeiture term would be enforced is a contract question not researched here. A record that commits the landlord to return the deposit in full if the landlord withdraws removes the question. This page recommends that term not because the statute requires it but because the statute supplies nothing else and the alternative — a landlord keeping an applicant’s money after refusing to rent to them — has no support in the subsections extracted.

Two provisions bear on it and neither answers it. The first is § 4461(a) itself, which defines a security deposit as money “refundable to the tenant”. Reading that to mean a payment labelled non-refundable is not a security deposit is circular for a holding deposit, because the question is whether calling it non-refundable is effective, and (a) does not say a landlord may take non-refundable money from a tenant. It says what a security deposit is. It does not say what else a landlord may collect.

The second is 9 V.S.A. § 4456a(a), quoted in full: “A landlord or a landlord’s agent shall not charge an application fee to any individual in order to apply to enter into a rental agreement for a residential dwelling unit.” Vermont bars application fees outright. A non-refundable payment taken from a person who is applying to rent, and kept whether or not they rent, sits close to the words “charge an application fee … in order to apply to enter into a rental agreement”. Whether it is one is not answered by the text of § 4456a(a), which does not define “application fee” in the material available to this page, and it is not asserted here.

What follows for a landlord is a matter of exposure rather than of rule. A refundable holding deposit sits inside § 4461(a) if a tenancy follows, and is governed by contract — not researched here — if it does not. A non-refundable one raises a question under § 4456a(a) that the statute does not resolve, and the landlord is the party who would have to defend the answer. The record this page generates is built for a refundable deposit, and flags any term that is not, for that reason.

No. The prohibition in § 4456a(a) is unconditional on its face: a landlord or a landlord’s agent “shall not charge an application fee to any individual in order to apply to enter into a rental agreement for a residential dwelling unit”. This is a feature that distinguishes Vermont from California, where Civ. Code § 1950.6 permits an application screening fee and § 1950.5(b) carves that fee out of “security”, and it changes what a holding deposit can be used for. In a state where a screening fee is lawful, a landlord can separate the cost of processing an applicant from the deposit that holds the unit. In Vermont the first of those is barred, and the temptation is to let the holding deposit absorb it — by taking a larger deposit, or by keeping part of it whatever the outcome. Only subsection (a) was read; whether the section carries exceptions elsewhere was not researched.

The text does not say whether that would be treated as charging an application fee. It says only that an application fee may not be charged. This page records the bar, records that the boundary between a holding deposit and an application fee is not drawn by the statute, and recommends that a Vermont holding deposit be structured as fully refundable so that the boundary never has to be located.

If it is a security deposit: within 14 days from the date on which the landlord discovers that the tenant vacated or abandoned, or 60 days for seasonal, non-primary-residence occupancy. If it is not, the statute sets no period at all. Subsection (c) is the source of both figures, and the statute counts in days. No conversion to hours or weeks appears on this page because none appears in the section.

The 14-day period is short by the standards of these seven states, and its trigger deserves attention. It runs from the landlord’s discovery that the tenant “vacated or abandoned”, not from the end of the lease term as such. For an ordinary tenancy that is a workable rule: the landlord learns the tenant has gone and has 14 days to return the deposit with a statement. For a holding deposit paid by someone who never took possession, the trigger does not map cleanly. The section does not say when, if ever, an applicant who agreed to rent and then withdrew “vacated or abandoned” the unit, and this page does not supply an answer the text lacks.

What the page can say is what a landlord risks by waiting. Under (e), the consequence of not returning the deposit with a statement within 14 days is that the landlord “forfeits the right to withhold any portion”. A landlord who is uncertain whether (c) applies to a particular holding deposit and chooses to treat the earliest plausible trigger as the real one — the day the applicant says they will not proceed — loses nothing by doing so and removes the question.

The 60-day period for seasonal occupancy of a dwelling that is not the tenant’s primary residence is recorded for completeness. Whether a holding deposit on a seasonal rental would fall under it depends on the same conditional as everything else, and additionally on the character of the occupancy that was agreed; the section is no more explicit on that than on the rest.

Only if the deposit was a security deposit — that is, only if a rental agreement existed when the money was paid — does § 4461(e) reach the landlord at all; the rest of this section assumes that branch. On that branch, subsection (e) sets two consequences, one automatic and one for wilful failure. The first attaches to timing: a landlord who fails to return the deposit with a statement within 14 days “forfeits the right to withhold any portion”. The word is “forfeits”. Whatever deductions the landlord might have been entitled to make are gone once the period passes without a return and statement. The second attaches to conduct: if the failure is wilful, the landlord is liable for “double the amount wrongfully withheld, plus reasonable attorney’s fees and costs”.

Read against a holding deposit, (e) has a particular edge. The typical reason a landlord keeps a holding deposit is that the applicant withdrew and the landlord feels entitled to compensation for the time the unit was off the market. If the deposit was a security deposit — because an oral rental agreement had been formed when it was paid — then keeping it on that basis is exactly the withholding (e) addresses, and (e) doubles the amount if the failure is wilful — a word § 4461 does not define, and no case law was researched for this page. The statute does not say a holding deposit is a security deposit. It also does not say it is not. A landlord who keeps one is betting on the first half of that sentence and carrying the exposure of the second.

Vermont sets no cap, so there is no separate penalty for taking too much. The exposure is entirely on the return side.

Yes. Subsection (g) permits a town or municipality to adopt a supplemental ordinance and to authorise interest on deposits. That means § 4461 is a floor, not the whole rule, wherever a municipality has acted. What such an ordinance may contain beyond what (g) names — a supplemental ordinance, and interest — was not researched.

No municipal ordinance was researched for this page. The page addresses the state section only, and a Vermont landlord should check whether the town in which the unit sits has adopted anything under (g) before relying on the state rule alone. The record this page generates leaves a line for noting any local ordinance that applies, because the state statute expressly contemplates one.

Vermont prescribes no holding-deposit form, and § 4461 does not say what such a document must contain; what follows is an inventory built around the fact the section turns on, not a statutory checklist.

The amount received, in figures; the date it was received; the method of payment; the unit address; the names of the landlord or agent and of the person who paid; a statement that the money is a deposit to hold the unit off the market until a stated date; a statement, in terms, of whether the parties have agreed to rent or whether the landlord is holding the unit while screening is completed and no agreement has yet been made; the date the hold ends; what happens to the money on signing, and specifically whether it is credited to the security deposit or to rent; what happens if the applicant withdraws; what happens if the landlord withdraws; the method and address or account for return; a line for any municipal ordinance adopted under § 4461(g); and signatures and dates for both sides.

The item that carries the most weight is the statement of whether the parties have agreed to rent. Every rule in § 4461 attaches through the word “tenant”, and a tenant under § 4451(10) is a person entitled under a rental agreement — which under § 4451(8) may be oral. The record cannot decide whether an oral agreement was formed; a court would. But it can fix what the parties said they intended at the moment the money moved, which is the evidence on which that decision would rest.

The item that removes the most risk is the commitment about what happens in each outcome. The statute says nothing about an applicant who withdraws and nothing about a landlord who does. A record that says the deposit is credited on signing and returned in full if either side withdraws states terms the statute does not. Any handling on the applicant’s withdrawal other than full return is a retention term whose enforceability is a contract question not researched here, and § 4456a(a) bars application fees while the statute does not say whether a kept holding payment is one.

Two things should not appear. No figure should be printed as a Vermont cap, because there is none. And nothing should suggest the document is a statutory form, because Vermont prescribes none. It is a record of facts the statute makes decisive and of terms the statute leaves to the parties.

The conditional ends and § 4461 applies in full. Once the applicant has signed, taken possession and had the holding deposit credited to the security deposit, the money is an advance or deposit, however named, refundable to a tenant at the termination or expiration of a tenancy. Nothing about its origin as a holding deposit takes it outside the section or changes how the section treats it.

From that point the rules are the ordinary Vermont security-deposit rules. Under (c), return is due within 14 days from the date on which the landlord discovers that the tenant vacated or abandoned, or 60 days for seasonal, non-primary-residence occupancy. Under (e), failure to return with a statement within 14 days forfeits the right to withhold any portion, and a wilful failure costs double the amount wrongfully withheld plus reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. Under (g), a municipal ordinance may add to those rules or authorise interest. The holding deposit record should therefore be kept with the tenancy file, because the amount originally paid and the date it was credited are facts the end-of-tenancy accounting will need.

All seven states compared here have been read from primary text — 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 security-deposit definition, and the definitions reach pre-lease money in strikingly different ways.

Vermont reaches it by label and then confines it by the word “tenant”: “any advance, deposit, or prepaid rent, however named, which is refundable to the tenant”. It sets no cap, returns within 14 days of the landlord’s discovery that the tenant vacated or abandoned, and doubles a wilful withholding. California is the one state whose definition names pre-lease money expressly: “security” under Civ. Code § 1950.5(b) includes any payment “imposed at the beginning of the tenancy to be used to reimburse the landlord for costs associated with processing a new tenant”, capped at one month’s rent by (c)(1) with narrow exceptions (text current as amended effective January 1, 2026), and (n) forbids characterising any security as non-refundable. Connecticut reaches it through “any advance rental payment” in § 47a-21(a)(11), caps at two months’ rent for a tenant under sixty-two and one month for a tenant sixty-two or older, and returns within twenty-one days after termination or fifteen days after receiving the forwarding address, whichever is later. Iowa defines a rental deposit in § 562A.6(12) as money “to secure performance of a residential rental agreement”, caps at two months’ rent, and returns within 30 days of termination and receipt of a mailing address. Kansas ties the definition in § 58-2543(m) to an existing rental agreement three times over — the sum must be “specified in a rental agreement”, deposited “by a tenant”, and forfeitable “under the terms of the rental agreement” — making it the cleanest “no” on its face. Mississippi is the one state that names pre-lease money and carves it out: § 89-8-21(1) governs deposits that secure performance of a rental agreement “other than a payment or deposit, including an advance payment of rent, made to secure the execution of a rental agreement”, and sets no cap.

Georgia, by contrast, was read from enacted acts rather than the codified O.C.G.A., 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.

What unites the seven states compared here is the conditional this page has stated for Vermont. In Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas and Mississippi, as in Vermont, the deposit is tied to a “tenant”, a tenant is a person entitled under a rental agreement, and a rental agreement may be oral; no definition of “tenant” for California was read for this page, and Georgia ties the money to a tenant and a residential rental agreement, defining the agreement (§ 44-7-30(2): a contract, lease, or license agreement) but neither “tenant” nor whether an agreement may be oral. Where those definitions apply, an applicant who pays and walks away before any agreement is not a tenant; an applicant who agreed to rent, even by phone, may be one. Vermont’s distinctive features are three: it is one of two states in the seven states compared here with no cap, Mississippi being the other; its definition opens from the form of the payment — “any advance, deposit, or prepaid rent, however named” — rather than from the function of securing a rental agreement, as Iowa’s and Mississippi’s do; and it bars application fees outright under § 4456a(a), where California expressly permits an application screening fee under § 1950.6 and carves it out of “security”. That last difference makes the boundary between a holding deposit and a fee matter more in Vermont than in California.

It is the General Assembly’s own publication, accepted on its own caption, and checked against a control that this host fails. Two cautions are recorded rather than hidden. The publisher states that “The Vermont Statutes Online is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience.” And legislature.vermont.gov returned an HTTP 200 page of 57,908 bytes for a fabricated section number, which means that the fact a section URL resolves on that host proves nothing. Every operative phrase tested was present on the real section and absent on the fabricated one, and the section was accepted on the caption printed in its own body, “§ 4461. Security deposits”.

Four things were not researched, and the page says so where each arises: Vermont case law on when a rental agreement is formed and whether a prospective tenant is a “tenant” for these purposes; municipal ordinances adopted under § 4461(g); whether a non-refundable holding payment is an “application fee” under § 4456a(a); and what § 4461 does with money paid by someone who never becomes a tenant, which the section simply does not address. A page that filled any of those gaps by analogy to a neighbouring state would be inventing Vermont law, and this one does not.

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

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