A new civic tech application looks to help New York City tenants pressure their landlords to return security deposits when they move out, something many renters miss out on.
The mobile-friendly webpage, Depositron, walks tenants through their security deposit questions and generates a demand letter they can send their landlord to get their money back. (Screenshot)
A new web application aims to help New Yorkers get their security deposits back from landlords who withhold them at move-out.
Thanks to a 2019 state law, your landlord has to return your security deposit within 14 days of you moving out, or notify you that they are withholding it to cover damages.
Sateesh Nori, a lawyer who used to run the civic tech shop JustFix, says that all too often, tenants don’t know their rights and landlords take advantage, with tenants paying 13 months rent when it should be 12.
“The law is really strong, but no one knows about it, and no one’s able to take advantage of it,” said Nori.
So he and partner Tom Martin built a mobile-friendly webpage, Depositron, that walks tenants through their security deposit questions and generates a demand letter they can send their landlord to get their money back.
Nearly 5,000 New Yorkers have complained about missing security deposits to the State Attorney General’s office since 2023, according to Gothamist. The office says it reclaimed $2.1 million for New Yorkers in that period.
Nori suspects that many more cases go unreported. He thinks the true cost to New Yorkers is tens of millions of dollars a year.
The app launched on July 4 and over 300 people used it in the first nine days, Nori said. It’s free to use right now, but they are pursuing grant funding or making paid features down the line to sustain the hosting and technology costs, he said.
When landlords don’t give you your money back you have a few options. You can file a complaint, like many did with the attorney general’s office. Or you can take them to small claims court, like Adrian Nesta did. The problem is that it can often take more than a year, Gothamist also reported.
“You have to evaluate if it’s worth your time and energy, and a tool like this is going to change that calculus, which is why it’s so potentially valuable,” Nesta said.
Nesta, a Brooklynite (and City Limits contributor) went through a protracted 16-month fight with his former landlord when he moved out of his Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment in 2022. The landlord withheld his security deposit, alleging damages. Nesta disputed, filed a complaint with the state attorney general’s office, and took the owner to small claims court.
“They’re relying on the fact that they have the money at the end of the day, you don’t, so you have to take the action to initiate and do all of that labor and time. And most people are either too busy or too overburdened with all the different things you have to go through to do that,” said Nesta.
There weren’t many lawyers eager to take such a small case, he said, especially when the most you can win back is double the deposit. So he fought it in court himself. “I took at least four days off, and then all the time I was researching,” said Nesta.
He was eventually able to get his money back. He read up on the law about security deposits, found the specific sections that applied, and wrote his landlord and the court a letter that looked much like the one Depositron will generate.
Depositron’s AI ask users a series of questions to populate a letter that includes the relevant legal statutes, personalized information, and attached pictures.
Nori hopes it will help tenants assert their rights and pressure landlords to promptly follow the law, resolving these cases quickly and diverting people from having to use small claims court.
He urged that the chatbot and the resulting letter do not constitute legal advice. Each individual case might require special attention, and there are no guarantees of your money back.
Landlords can also keep security deposits for a good reason, like to pay for damages to the apartment—but they need to notify the tenant within 14 days and send an itemized list of expenses.
“I don’t know that a letter is going to help, but I have to believe there are some landlords who aren’t necessarily following the law, but when prodded, might,” said Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society.
“Anything that makes it easier for a tenant to assert their rights is a good thing,” she added.
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