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 two clocks on you, and both are easy to miss. First: 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 (your own claim to the deposit still survives). Second: once they send you an itemized damage notice, you have seven days to mail back a written response disagreeing with it. Miss that too, and the landlord doesn't have to sue you or return anything within 45 days - not responding is one of a handful of situations where they can simply keep the disputed amount. Put both in writing, and keep 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
The date you handed back possession, plus the 30-day window above, is the number that matters. If that date has passed and nothing arrived, that fact carries weight under Michigan law - the statute is quoted above, and the conditions attached to it (if any) are noted on this page too.
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 dated photographs are the strongest evidence you can bring to that question.
Check your timeline for Michigan
Other states
Last reviewed: 24 Aug 2026 · 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. Independently re-verified 24 Aug 2026: confirmed § 554.609 requires a mandatory boldface 7-day-response warning on the landlord's notice, § 554.612 creates the tenant's matching 7-day mail-response duty, and § 554.613(1)(a)-(d) lists four situations - including a missed tenant response - where the landlord's 45-day sue-or-return rule doesn't apply. The double-damages penalty is real but was previously presented as closer to automatic than the statute allows for.