Your landlord hasn't returned the deposit. Here's what actually works.

Your landlord has to pay the deposit back, with the interest it earned, once they have had a reasonable time to check the flat and settle up — usually three to six months. They can keep only what they can prove you owe. If they go quiet, send a written demand with a deadline (a letter to copy is below), then apply for a court payment order yourself, for a fee in the tens of euros.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. What applies to your deposit depends on your lease and the state you left the flat in. An admitted lawyer (Rechtsanwalt) can tell you where you stand.

1. What the landlord is allowed to do with it

A residential deposit (Kaution) is capped at three months' cold rent (§ 551 BGB) — rent excluding utilities. The landlord must hold it separately from their own money, in an interest-bearing account, and the interest is yours.

So if you paid more than three months' cold rent, the extra is simply yours: the landlord had no right to ask for it, and there is nothing to negotiate.

And if the landlord mixed your deposit with their own money, that breaks the rules too. It doesn't change what you get back, but it tells you something about who you are dealing with.

2. When it has to be returned

The law does not fix a number of days. Courts give landlords a reasonable period after the tenancy ends to inspect, work out any claims, and settle up — commonly understood as up to three to six months, longer only if there is a genuine reason such as an outstanding utility reconciliation, in which case they may hold back a proportionate part, not the whole amount.

What a landlord may not do is simply keep it without explanation. Six months of silence after you handed back the keys is not "still checking". It becomes a debt.

Two time limits run after you move out. Yours is long: the claim to the deposit expires after three years, counted from the end of the year in which the landlord's time to settle up ran out (§ 195 BGB). The landlord's time limit is short: claims for damage to the flat expire six months after they got it back (§ 548 BGB). That does not mean nothing can be deducted after six months, though. The Federal Court of Justice has held that a landlord can still set such claims off against a cash deposit when settling it (VIII ZR 184/23, 10 July 2024). What the six months do is stop the landlord, as a rule, from making you pay for damage beyond what the deposit covers.

3. What can be deducted — and what can't

A landlord can set off against the deposit only what you actually owe:

• unpaid rent;
• damage beyond normal wear and tear, which they must be able to evidence;
• a utility balance once reconciled;
• cleaning or repairs you were contractually obliged to do and didn't — and only where that clause was valid, which many are not.

Routinely deducted, routinely not owed:

• Normal wear — faded paint, small nail holes, worn flooring — is the landlord's cost, not yours.
• Renovation on moving out based on a rigid schedule ("paint every three years") — clauses like that have repeatedly been held invalid.
• Unitemised "cleaning" or "repair" sums with no receipts, no photos, no handover record.
• Costs for things that were already worn or damaged when you moved in.

This is why your own move-in and move-out photos, and a signed handover protocol (Übergabeprotokoll), are worth more than any argument. If you have them, you are in a strong position. If you don't, it becomes their word against yours — and the burden of proving damage is on the landlord.

4. The written demand, with a letter to copy

Before anything formal, send a written demand with a deadline — by email is fine, by registered post is better if you expect a fight. It needs only:

• the address, the tenancy dates, and the date you returned the keys;
• the deposit amount and your bank details;
• a clear deadline, two weeks is standard;
• a sentence that you will pursue it formally if unpaid.

This matters for two reasons. It puts the landlord formally in default (Verzug), from which point interest runs and your costs of enforcement become claimable from them. And it is the step everything afterwards refers back to.

If the landlord has kept back part of the deposit, add a written request for an itemised list of each deduction.

The letter below covers both, in German, which is what a landlord or their agent will expect. Replace the parts in square brackets.

Betreff: Rückzahlung der Mietkaution – [Adresse der Wohnung]

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

das Mietverhältnis über die Wohnung [Adresse der Wohnung] endete am [Datum]. Die Wohnung habe ich am [Datum] mit allen Schlüsseln an Sie zurückgegeben.

Ich fordere Sie auf, die Mietkaution in Höhe von [Betrag] Euro zuzüglich der angefallenen Zinsen bis zum [Datum, zwei Wochen ab heute] auf folgendes Konto zu überweisen:

Kontoinhaber: [Ihr Name]
IBAN: [Ihre IBAN]

Falls Sie einen Teil der Kaution einbehalten, bitte ich bis zum selben Datum um eine Abrechnung, in der jeder Abzug einzeln aufgeführt und belegt ist.

Geht die Zahlung nicht fristgerecht ein, werde ich ohne weitere Ankündigung einen Mahnbescheid beantragen.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
[Ihr Name]
[Ihre aktuelle Anschrift]

5. The Mahnverfahren: a court order without a trial

For an undisputed sum of money — and a landlord who simply isn't paying is usually not disputing anything, just not answering — Germany has a fast track that most people have never heard of: the Mahnverfahren.

You apply online to the central Mahngericht for a Mahnbescheid — a court payment order. No hearing, no lawyer required, and the court fee is modest (it scales with the amount; for a typical deposit it is in the low tens of euros and is added to what the landlord owes you). The landlord then has two weeks to object. The official form is in German only — our English walkthrough shows your court, your fee, and what to type where.

• If they do nothing, you apply for an enforcement order (Vollstreckungsbescheid), and you can have it enforced — against their bank account, for instance.
• If they object, the matter moves to an ordinary court, which is where you reassess. A dispute over a residential tenancy, including a deposit claim, goes to the local Amtsgericht whatever the amount (§ 23 GVG). Unlike at the Landgericht, you do not need a lawyer to appear there (§ 78 ZPO), though one helps.

The Mahnbescheid does most of its work by arriving. A landlord who has ignored three emails rarely ignores a court document with a two-week window printed on it.

6. If the landlord has vanished, or isn't who you think

The Mahnverfahren needs a name and a serviceable address. If your landlord was a company, that is whoever is on your lease. If your landlord sold the flat while you were renting it, the buyer took over the deposit obligation, including the duty to return it (§ 566a BGB). If you cannot get it back from the buyer when the tenancy ends, the former landlord still has to return it. So a new owner saying they are "not responsible for the deposit" is not the last word. A new managing agent is different: a change of management is not a sale, and your claim stays with your landlord.

A company that has gone quiet can still be served at its registered address, which is public (Handelsregister). A private landlord who has moved can be traced through the registration office (Einwohnermeldeamt) — a paid but routine enquiry. What you cannot do is serve a Mahnbescheid on a WhatsApp number.

7. Co-living and sublets

Co-living operators, furnished-rental platforms and chains of sublets produce the most confusion, because the person collecting the rent, the person on your contract and the person who owns the flat can all be different. Your claim is against whoever your contract is with, which is not necessarily the owner. Someone else becomes liable when they legally take your landlord's place. A sale by your landlord is one way (see the section above). Another: if an operator rented the flat in order to sublet it as a business and its own lease ends, the owner or a new operator steps into your contract, with the same deposit rules (§ 565 BGB). A managing agent collecting rent on someone else's behalf does not take your landlord's place.

These operators also tend to use "service fee", "membership" or "reservation" labels for what is functionally a deposit. The label is not decisive; what the money was for is. And if you were told you could not get it back because the flat was handed to a new manager, see the section above: a handover like that does not, on its own, cancel your claim.

8. Chasing it from abroad

You do not have to be in Germany. The written demand, the Mahnverfahren and an enforcement order can all be run from outside the country, though a German address for service makes things easier and some stages are paper-based. A lawyer acting for you removes that friction entirely, and where the landlord is clearly in default, their fees are generally recoverable on top of the deposit.

The order that works