OK, this is a slight twist on a recent post. I showed an apartment to a potential tenant (I own the building… not an agent). He claimed to love it and applied. I approved the application and asked when we could sign a lease. We set the next day to sign. Next day comes and he has an excuse. I told him I’d be willing to postpone the lease signing for one day if he paid a $200 deposit through Paypal to hold it until the next day. He did so.<\/p>\n
Next day comes and he has several new excuses. It’s clear he no longer wants the apartment. I told him I’m still willing to sign at whatever time works for him. He finally insists I refund the deposit as he has decided he cannot afford the rent and files a complaint with Paypal to force the refund.<\/p>\n
My take on this is what is the point of a deposit if the potential tenant can simply change his mind and demand a full refund? Does anyone know the actual law on this? Morally I feel I’m in the right here, but I realize morality and the law are totally separate issues.<\/p>\n %<\/span><\/span> | %<\/span><\/a> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OK, this is a slight twist on a recent post. I showed an apartment to a potential tenant (I own the building… not an agent). He claimed to love it and applied. I approved the application and asked when we could sign a lease. We set the next day to sign. Next day comes and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32884,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"schneps_byline":"","schneps_post_style":"","schneps_post_source":"","schneps_syndicated_read_more":"","schneps_post_source_sitename":"","schneps_syndicated_thumb_html":"","schneps_syndicated_thumb_src":"","schneps_post_source_shortname":"","schneps_post_source_url":"","schneps_post_source_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[],"districts":[],"class_list":["post-42175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tenants"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2010\/03\/deposit-to-hold\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Deposit to Hold Apartment?","url":"http:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2010\/03\/deposit-to-hold\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2010\/03\/deposit-to-hold\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":""},"articleSection":"Tenants","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"ejalbk"}],"creator":["ejalbk"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Forum Archive","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2010-03-23T17:48:29Z","datePublished":"2010-03-23T17:48:29Z","dateModified":"2010-03-25T15:15:47Z"},"rendered":"