Two Months' Deposit, Sixty-Two Days of Silence, and a Cold January

Lawful. Maryland caps a residential security deposit at two months' rent. Two months here is $3,700, so the amount collected is exactly at the ceiling - anything more (a "last month's rent" held as security, a refundable cleaning fee) would push the total over the cap and expose the landlord to returning the excess plus possible penalties.

Obligations accepted:

• Give the tenant a receipt for the deposit.
• Hold the money in trust in a separate account (he promised a separate account; commingling with operating funds is a violation and also gets the broker/landlord into trust-accounting trouble if a licensee is involved).
• Return the deposit, or a written itemized statement of damages plus the remaining balance, within 45 days of the tenant vacating and surrendering possession.
• If any deduction is intended, notify the tenant in writing of the date of the inspection and of her right to be present.

A one-word promise in a lease is not a plan; the failure to do the mechanical parts is where liability starts.

The delay alone is fatal. The statute gives 45 days. Day 62 with no itemization is a failure to comply, regardless of whether the deductions were otherwise legitimate.

The deductions themselves are weak:

• Carpet: 12-year-old carpet worn through in a traffic path is normal wear and depreciation, not tenant damage. A landlord cannot charge replacement cost for an asset already past its useful life; at most a depreciated value, and here likely nothing.
• Repainting: nail holes and ordinary scuffs from normal living are wear. Charging a full repaint of a unit that needed repainting between tenants is not recoverable.
• No inspection notice was given, so Tanya was deprived of the chance to dispute the condition.

Recovery theory: Maryland allows a tenant to recover up to three times the amount wrongfully withheld, plus reasonable attorney's fees. Wrongfully withheld here is the full $3,700, so exposure reaches roughly $11,100 plus fees, and a court may also address the missing receipt and trust-account failures. Practically, Tanya should send a written demand with a deadline, then file in District Court; her photographs and move-out condition evidence carry the case.

The obligation: Maryland law implies a warranty of habitability, and heat in winter is a core habitability item. Failure to repair after written notice is a serious condition, not a cosmetic one.

Tanya's options, in order:

1. Written notice to the landlord stating the defect and a reasonable deadline (she effectively did this three times).
2. If uncorrected, file a rent escrow action in District Court asking the court to order repairs and to allow rent to be paid into the court registry rather than to the landlord.
3. Raise the conditions as a defense in any action for rent or possession, and consider a claim for the cost of the space heaters or a rent abatement for the period.
4. Report to the local housing code enforcement agency.

What the landlord may not do:

• Self-help eviction - changing locks, shutting off utilities, or removing her belongings. Possession can only be recovered through District Court process (notice, then complaint, then warrant of restitution executed by the sheriff).
• Retaliate - raising rent, terminating the tenancy, or filing for possession because she complained in writing or asserted habitability rights is prohibited, and retaliation is an affirmative defense.

Note the linkage: the same landlord who ignores a 23-day heat outage is the one who ignores a 45-day deposit deadline. The pattern is what a court sees.