Get your security deposit back in Massachusetts.

The statute is specific about dates. Counting from your own lease and payment dates:

• Deposit receipt. The landlord must give you a receipt when you pay, and a second receipt within 30 days naming the bank that holds the deposit.
• Statement of Condition. Due within 10 days of the tenancy starting, or the deposit being paid, whichever is later. You then have 15 days to sign it or send back your own list of existing damage.
• Interest. 5% per year, or the bank’s actual rate, once the deposit has been held a year.
• Return. The deposit plus interest, minus lawful itemized deductions, is due back within 30 days after the tenancy ends.

Save your tenancy dates in 9tenant with a Massachusetts address and a deposit on record, and the dashboard computes each deadline and shows what is done, due, or overdue.

1. Check the dates. Count 30 days from the end of the tenancy, not from when you asked.
2. Put the demand in writing. State the amount, the dates, and where to send payment. Keep it factual.
3. Send it certified. Certified mail gives you a dated record that the demand was sent and delivered.
4. Keep everything. The lease, the deposit receipt, move-in photos, the demand letter, the tracking record.
5. Escalate if ignored. Small claims court handles deposit disputes routinely, and legal aid organizations advise tenants for free. The statute lets a court award up to three times the deposit for certain violations. A court decides that, not a letter.

The Demand for Security Deposit Return template pre-fills the Massachusetts statutory wording when your unit is in Massachusetts: the 30-day deadline and the exposure the statute creates for landlords who miss it. You review it and sign it. We print it and mail it USPS Certified with delivery tracking for $25. The letter, the receipt, and the tracking history are filed in your records automatically, next to the deadline timeline the dashboard already tracks.

• Mass.gov: Massachusetts law about tenants’ security deposits
• The statute itself, MGL c. 186, § 15B
• The Attorney General’s guide to landlord and tenant rights