Michigan security deposit law
Your landlord is on a clock, and most tenants never find out it exists. Here is what the statute actually says - quoted, with a link so you can read it yourself.
30 days after your occupancy ends, your landlord must mail you an itemized list of damages. They then have 45 days from the end of the tenancy either to file a court action for those damages or to return the balance.
- Itemization
- Required, and it must be mailed.
- If they get it wrong
- Failure to comply fully waives all of the landlord's claimed damages and makes them liable to you for double the amount of the deposit retained.
- Statute
- Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 554.609, 554.611, 554.613
The part most people miss
Michigan puts a four-day clock on you, and almost nobody knows it exists. You must notify the landlord in writing, within four days of moving out, of an address where they can reach you. Miss it and the landlord is relieved of the duty to notify you of damages at all - though your own claim to the deposit survives. Send it in writing and keep the proof.
Failure of the landlord to comply fully with this section constitutes waiver of all claimed damages and makes him liable to the tenant for double the amount of the security deposit retained.
Mich. Comp. Laws § 554.613(2)
Where that leaves you
Work out the date you handed back possession, then count. If the deadline has passed and nothing arrived, that fact alone carries weight under Michigan law - read the statute above and see where you stand.
If you are still living there, or about to move out, the most useful thing you can do takes fifteen minutes. Nearly every dispute reduces to a single question - was that damage there before you were - and the person holding dated photographs is the one who wins it.
Check your exact timeline for Michigan
Other states
How this was sourced: §§ 554.609, 554.611 and 554.613 read separately at law.justia.com, 19 Aug 2026. The four-day tenant deadline in § 554.611 is easy to miss and materially changes the advice.