Ohio 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 the rental agreement ends and you hand back possession, your landlord must return the deposit and itemize any deductions in a written notice.
- Itemization
- Required. Every deduction must be itemized and identified in writing.
- If they get it wrong
- You may recover the money due plus damages equal to the amount wrongfully withheld, together with reasonable attorney's fees - commonly described as double damages.
- Statute
- Ohio Rev. Code § 5321.16
The part most people miss
Ohio has a trap that costs tenants a real remedy, though not their whole claim: the landlord's enhanced-damages liability is conditioned on the tenant giving a forwarding address in writing. Skip that step and you forfeit the enhanced damages and attorney's fees under this statute - but the deposit itself is still recoverable under ordinary law, just without that extra leverage.
The tenant shall provide the landlord in writing with a forwarding address or new address to which the written notice and amount due from the landlord may be sent.
Ohio Rev. Code § 5321.16(B)
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 Ohio 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.
Other states
Last reviewed: 23 Aug 2026 · How this was sourced: Statutory text read at codes.ohio.gov (§ 5321.16), 19 Aug 2026. Independently re-verified 23 Aug 2026: the forwarding-address penalty clause in (B) names only division (C) - the enhanced-damages-plus-fees remedy - as what's forfeited, not the tenant's basic right to the deposit itself, consistent with Ohio Supreme Court's construction in Smith v. Padgett, 32 Ohio St.3d 344 (1987). Tightened the wording so 'lose the remedy' can't be read as losing the whole claim.