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Shouldn't be a issue since landlords never lie to keep deposits right?
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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As someone who is likely going to be stuck renting for the foreseeable future, I agree. I'll happily pay my deposit to some sort of escrow that the landlord has zero access to until it's proven by a neutral third party, with no financial interest in the property, who has seen the property before and after renting.
Who’s going to pay this neutral third party to come see the property twice and allocate the deposit between the tenant and landlord?
The escrow company gets to invest the deposit. They can use a portion of those funds to determine who receives the payout.
You mean they keep a portion of the deposit to determine who receives the payout? If you meant they only keep a portion of the revenues produced by the investment, which obviously must be one of the safest ones available and thus will have low return on investment, I'm afraid that would not be economically viable for the escrow company.
Either the landlord or a split between the parties
A split between the parties might help avoid conflict of interests
Where I live it’s up to the landlord to dispute the return of the government-held bond and prove their case to the tribunal. If they do not dispute within two weeks after the tenant claims it, or are unsuccessful in proving damage, the government automatically releases the bond back to the tenant.
Realistically the viewing could be replaced by the landlord taking a series of before and after photographs that are approved by the tenant. A $2000 deposit held in just a CD would generate $100 in a year, which is enough to cover a good bit of any random additional costs
That's if everything goes well. What if the tenant does not approve the photos?
Last time we rented we put the deposit into a savings account. The landlords got the book needed to access it and we were the people needed to access it. That way we also collected interest on the deposit (which I think is technically mandatory in Germany).
And good thing we did that because we did have some trouble after we moved out.
Here, too, the tenant gets the deposit back and any interest accrued.
My honest opinion? By the city. Yeah i know that introduces another layer of issues, but there needs to be some sort of integrity in place so there's no conflict of interest coughutahlegislaturecough
It's important to prevent conflict of interests but asking the city to step in in every single rental agreement is not necessarily an effective solution. Someone else here suggested having the cost split between the tenant and the landlord, which has the merit of addressing the potential conflict of interest.
Splitting costs between a party paying money and a party receiving money (in exchanage for goods or services) never works. If the landlord wants to rent for X but have to pay Y, they will simply rent for X+Y so they end up with X the way they wanted.
What we are trying to avoid here is a conflict of interest where the third party would side with whoever pays them most of the time.
Or just make some laws about impartiality, and use fines and loss of licence as punishment. Lastly, allow renters to choose the inspector.
Unfortunately in many places houses are rare and landlords can choose from a wide range of interested renters. They can always choose the renter that is willing to pay for the inspection completely and choose the inspection company favoured by the landlord.
If you’re going to ask the government to step in, I would suggest to make building more housing easier.
In Brazil, tge escrow is keep by an insurance company, for the landlord to keep its need a judicial order, and at the end you receive it back adjusted by inflation.