If you handed back the keys to your previous flat at the end of July, the deadline the law gives the landlord to return your deposit expired at the end of August. Article 36.4 of Law 29/1994 on Urban Leases (the LAU) gives the landlord one month from the handover of the keys, and once that month passes the amount withheld earns the statutory legal interest automatically, with no demand required. Nobody reminds the landlord and nobody warns you. The clock runs from the day the keys change hands, so the first thing to establish is which day that was and what evidence you have of it.
I deal with it together with the other two questions that reach the firm every autumn, the rent increase in the flat you are returning to and the landlord’s notice that he does not intend to renew, because all three are resolved with the same statute and the same evidence.
What the deposit is and how much they can ask for
The deposit is a mandatory guarantee laid down in article 36.1 of the LAU. In a residential lease it equals one month’s rent, and in a lease for a use other than housing, business premises, offices or seasonal lets, it equals two. It is not rent paid in advance, nor a fund the landlord may draw on during the tenancy. Nor can it be used to cover the last month unless both parties have expressly agreed to that, and if you stop paying the final month on the basis that “the deposit covers it”, the landlord can claim that rent as unpaid.
During the first five years of the contract, seven if the landlord is a legal entity, the deposit is not updated (article 36.2). Only after that may it be adjusted so that it once again matches one month of the current rent.
The landlord may ask for an additional guarantee, a bank guarantee or an extra deposit, but in residential leases of up to five or seven years that guarantee cannot exceed two months’ rent (article 36.5). If you paid three months on a flat that is your main home, two of them are an additional guarantee subject to that cap, and their return follows the same logic as the deposit, although the statutory interest in article 36.4 refers to the cash deposit and not to the supplementary guarantee.
There is another obligation tenants rarely know about. The third additional provision of the LAU requires the landlord to lodge the deposit with the body designated by each autonomous community. In Galicia that body is the Instituto Galego da Vivenda e Solo. The money is not kept in the landlord’s account; it is held by the regional administration, and at the end of the lease the landlord withdraws it and returns it to you. Failing to lodge it does not release the landlord from returning it, but it does place him in breach of an administrative rule, and that has its uses when you claim, as I explain below.
From which day the month runs
The month in article 36.4 starts with the handover of the keys. The ideal is a handover record signed by both parties with the date, the condition of the flat and the meter readings. In practice, many handovers are done by leaving the keys in the letterbox, giving them to a doorman or sending them by courier, and that is where the evidential problem begins.
If the keys are simply left in the letterbox, the landlord can maintain that he received them days later or never received them at all, and you have no way of rebutting that. If they are sent by courier with proof of delivery, or handed over with a written message the landlord replies to, the date of receipt is fixed. That date marks the start of the month, the start of interest and, if it comes to court, the moment the property stops being your responsibility. That is why any handover without a signed record should at least leave a written trace with the date, even if it is a message with a photograph of the keys in the landlord’s hands and his reply.
Where several tenants are on the contract, the landlord returns the deposit to the tenants who signed, usually to one on behalf of all or to the account indicated. Whatever a flatmate who left earlier collected from the person who replaced him is an arrangement between them that does not bind the landlord. If the deposit was paid by a third party, a parent for instance, the creditor as against the landlord is still the tenant who signed.
What the landlord may deduct and what he may not
The Civil Code sets the starting point. The tenant must return the property as he received it, except for what has perished or deteriorated through time or unavoidable cause (article 1561), and is liable for any deterioration he cannot show occurred without his fault (article 1563). From that follows the distinction that decides almost all of these disputes. Wear from normal use over the years, yellowed paint, furniture marks on the floor or an aged shower seal, is borne by the owner. Damage beyond that use, a broken pane, a door off its hinges or a wall drilled to hang a television, is borne by the tenant.
On that basis the landlord may deduct from the deposit any unpaid rent and utilities and any damage he proves with an estimate or an invoice, provided it is not ordinary wear. Final cleaning only if the flat was returned dirty to a degree that requires a professional service, and he will normally have to prove that with photographs from that day. A lock change is not deductible unless you failed to return all sets of keys. Repainting the whole flat is not deductible if you lived there for five years and the walls are as any ordinary use leaves them.
If the contract contained no inventory or description of the initial condition, article 1562 of the Civil Code presumes the tenant received the property in good condition, which works against you. Dated photographs from the day you moved in and the day you moved out are what tip these cases one way or the other, and they cost nothing to take.
What a withheld deposit is worth and what is at stake
Some figures. With a deposit of 900 euros and the statutory legal interest set for 2025, 3.25 % per year, three months’ delay generates about 7 euros of interest and six months about 15. Interest is not the incentive to claim; the incentive is the deposit itself and the costs.
The tenant’s time limit to claim the deposit is five years from when it should have been returned (article 1964.2 of the Civil Code). A court claim goes through the verbal procedure, which since Royal Decree-Law 6/2023 covers amounts up to 15,000 euros, and below 2,000 euros you may appear without a lawyer or court agent. Since 3 April 2025, Organic Law 1/2025 requires proof of a prior attempt at negotiation before any civil claim is filed, and not just any email or message satisfies it. The letter demanding the deposit from the landlord is no longer a courtesy; it is the document that opens or closes the door to court.
If you win in full, the landlord pays the costs. But if the amount is below 2,000 euros and you appear with a lawyer, his fees are only included in the costs where the court finds the landlord acted recklessly. That rule is what really decides whether litigating over a small deposit is worth it, and I deal with it in the last question. If the landlord does not appear at the hearing you are not automatically found right; the court decides on the evidence you produce, which is why proof of the flat’s condition and of the key date remains the heart of the matter.
The landlord who never lodged the deposit with the IGVS deserves a separate mention. The tenant can check by asking the body for the certificate, and the failure to lodge is an offence penalised under Galician housing legislation. In negotiation that fact carries weight, because the landlord knows a well-directed claim brings the administrative complaint with it. How it is used is a question of strategy, and it is part of what we do.
If you paid the money before seeing the flat to someone who then disappeared, what you have is not a deposit problem but a fraud, and the route is a different one. I explain it in fake accommodation listings and, if you paid by Bizum, in what to do after a Bizum scam.
At the firm we practise in tenancy matters from reviewing the contract to claiming the deposit and defending against unjustified deductions, and you can see how we work in civil law.
How much the rent can rise and when
The rent is whatever the parties agree at signing (article 17 of the LAU). What is not free is its updating during the contract. Article 18 allows the rent to be updated only once a year, on the date each year of the contract is completed, and only if the contract expressly provides for it. If your contract says nothing about updating, the landlord cannot raise the rent for as long as the contract and its extensions last.
Where updating is agreed, the increase is capped. Law 12/2023 on the right to housing limited updates (to 2 % in 2023 and 3 % in 2024) and, for contracts signed after it came into force, the cap is the Housing Rental Reference Index published by the INE, which has been running below the CPI. A clause that simply refers to the CPI cannot take the increase above that index. In addition, the updated rent is only payable from the month following the one in which the landlord notifies you in writing (article 18.3). An increase applied verbally, or charged retroactively for several months back, is not payable for those months.
A different matter is the landlord telling you, when the annual renewal date comes round, that “if you want to stay, the rent is now such and such”. While you are within the minimum term of the contract and its extensions, the only increase possible is the agreed update. Making continuation conditional on a new rent is not permitted until the contract has run its full course, and at that point we are talking about a new contract rather than a renewal.
Expenses have their own rule. Community charges, property tax and the like may only be passed on to the tenant if the contract says so in writing and fixes their annual amount at signing (article 20.1). Estate agency fees and the costs of drawing up the contract are the landlord’s, whether a company or a private individual, since Law 12/2023. If the agency charged you fees on a residential contract signed after May 2023, that amount is recoverable.
Law 12/2023 adds rent limits in areas declared stressed housing markets. In Galicia, as of today, none has been declared, so in A Coruña that regime does not apply and the rent on a new contract is free.
If the landlord will not renew
At this point the clock that is running is the landlord’s. A residential lease lasts as long as it says, but the tenant is entitled to mandatory annual extensions until five years are completed, seven if the landlord is a company (article 9.1 of the LAU). During that period the landlord cannot refuse to renew. The exception is his need to occupy the property himself, for a first-degree relative or for his spouse in the event of separation or divorce, and it only works if it is expressly provided for in the contract, if the first year has passed and if he gives you two months’ notice (article 9.3). If three months after you leave nobody occupies the property, you may return for a new five-year term with compensation for your moving costs, or receive one month’s rent for each year you had left.
When the five or seven years expire, the landlord must notify you at least four months in advance that he is not renewing. If he does not, the contract is compulsorily extended in annual periods for up to three more years (article 10.1). A landlord who tells you in September that the contract ends in November is too late, and the contract continues for another year on the same terms. If you do not wish to stay, you must give two months’ notice.
| Situation | Who gives notice | Notice period | If not complied with |
|---|---|---|---|
| Return of the deposit after handing back keys | Landlord | One month from the keys | Statutory interest runs automatically (art. 36.4) |
| Not renewing at the end of the minimum term (5 or 7 years) | Landlord | Four months | Annual extension for up to three more years (art. 10.1) |
| Not renewing at the end of the minimum term | Tenant | Two months | Annual extension (art. 10.1) |
| Not continuing into an annual extension within the minimum term | Tenant | Thirty days | Extension for the following year (art. 9.1) |
| Landlord or family needs the property | Landlord | Two months, after the first year and only if stated in the contract | Property cannot be recovered (art. 9.3) |
| Agreed rent update | Landlord | Written notice, payable from the following month | Not payable for earlier months (art. 18.3) |
The table sets out the statutory periods, but the contract may improve some of them in the tenant’s favour and may not worsen any of them.
If the landlord sells the flat, the buyer steps into his shoes and must honour your contract at least for the minimum term (article 14). A sale is not a ground for eviction or for a rent increase.
If you want to leave early, article 11 allows you to withdraw once six months have passed, giving thirty days’ notice. You will only owe compensation, of one month’s rent for each remaining year, if the contract expressly provides for it. The deposit is returned in that case too, within the same one-month period, less any proper deductions.
In room rentals and seasonal lets the rules change. A seasonal let is a lease for a use other than housing, with two months’ deposit and no right to the extensions in article 9. In room rentals, what applies depends on how the contract is drafted, and it has to be read before taking anything for granted.
When a landlord who cannot get you out cuts off the electricity, changes the lock or enters the flat unannounced, the matter stops being civil and becomes a criminal one of threats or coercion.
What you can do today
Keep the contract, the receipts for the deposit and the additional guarantee, and every message exchanged with the landlord about the keys, the condition of the flat or the rent increase. Do not delete those conversations or change your number without exporting them. If you are still in the flat and about to leave, photograph every room and the meters on the day of handover, with the date visible. If you have just moved in, do the same today and send it to the landlord by a means that leaves a record. Do not sign a handover record stating that you are leaving damage if you have not seen it. Do not accept a rent increase verbally or pay it “to avoid trouble”, because payment without reservation is later read as acceptance.
If the landlord is insolvent and does not pay even with a judgment against him, the problem changes in nature and becomes one of enforcement.
Claiming on your own is possible, but the real risk lies in two places. The first is evidence, because a deposit case is won or lost on the photographs and the key date, and what was not fixed at the outset cannot be recovered later. The second is the prior negotiation requirement under Organic Law 1/2025, because a badly framed demand leaves the claim unfiled or makes it inadmissible. At the firm we review the contract and the evidence, frame the demand to the landlord so that it meets that requirement and, if he does not pay, conduct the verbal proceedings, including costs and the lodging offence where there is one. You can call +34 677 841 007 or write through the contact page, and what saves us both time is having to hand the contract, the deposit receipt, the date and proof of the key handover and the move-in and move-out photographs.
Frequently asked questions
From which day does the month to return the deposit run if we did not sign a key handover record?
From the day the landlord actually received the keys, and proving that is up to you. A courier delivery with proof of receipt or a dated message the landlord replies to fixes that day; keys simply left in the letterbox do not.
Can the landlord deduct final cleaning or a lock change from my deposit?
Cleaning only if the flat was returned dirty to the point of needing a professional service and he can prove it with photographs from that day. A lock change no, unless you failed to return all sets of keys. Paint and ordinary wear marks are never deductible.
Can my rent be raised at renewal even if the contract says nothing?
No. Without an express updating clause the rent stays the same for the whole contract and its extensions. If there is a clause, the increase is annual, subject to the legal cap and payable only from the month after written notice.
Do I need a lawyer to claim my deposit?
Below 2,000 euros you can go without one, and if the dispute is over a 200 or 300 euro deduction with the evidence on your side, paying a lawyer is probably not worth it, because his fees are not recovered in costs unless the landlord acted recklessly. It is worth it when the whole deposit or an additional guarantee is at stake, when the landlord alleges damage you deny, when he never lodged the deposit, or when you have already tried to negotiate and he does not respond.