Can I deduct for normal wear and tear from a security deposit?

No. Normal wear from ordinary use — faded paint, minor scuffs, ageing fittings — is the owner's cost. Deductions are for damage beyond that, or for unpaid dues. A dated handover record is what distinguishes the two.

How long does a landlord have to return the deposit in India?

It depends on the state and on what the agreement says; many agreements specify 15 to 30 days from vacating. Where a state rent act or model tenancy legislation applies, that timeline may be prescribed. Check the position in your state.

Does the tenant have to sign the handover report?

There is no statutory requirement, but an unacknowledged report is much weaker evidence. Acknowledgement by email or a signed copy is sufficient; it does not need to be notarised.

Property Handover Checklist for Indian Landlords

A security deposit dispute is rarely a disagreement about honesty. It is a disagreement about memory. The tenant remembers the bathroom tile being chipped when they arrived. You remember it being fine. Neither of you is lying, and neither of you can prove anything.

The handover report exists to make that conversation unnecessary. It takes about forty minutes and it is the highest-return forty minutes in the entire tenancy.

Photograph rooms, then photograph damage

Wide shot of every room from the doorway. Then close-ups of anything already marked, chipped, stained or broken — deliberately, with the tenant present. Counter-intuitively, you want a thorough record of existing damage: it is what stops that damage being attributed to the tenant later.

Photograph the ceiling in bathrooms and kitchens. Water damage starts there and is the most commonly disputed item.

Record every meter reading, with the meter visible

Electricity, water, gas where applicable. A photograph showing the reading and enough of the meter to identify it. Utility disputes at move-out are common and entirely avoidable.

Count and test what is provided

Fans, lights, geysers, taps, locks, keys, any furniture or appliances. Switch each one on. "Working at handover" is a much stronger position than "was working when I last looked".

Count keys explicitly, including duplicates. Note who else holds one.

Get it acknowledged

A handover record the tenant has not seen is one side’s account. A handover record the tenant has signed or acknowledged in writing is evidence. This is the step people skip, and it is the step that matters.

Then keep it somewhere you will find it

Two years later, at exactly the moment you need it. Alongside the registered agreement and the verification record — the three documents that decide almost every tenancy dispute.

Repeat it on the way out

The same rooms, the same angles, the same meters, with the tenant present. Deductions then become a comparison of two records rather than an assertion. Most tenants accept a fair deduction they can see the basis for; almost none accept one they cannot.

Where wear is genuinely normal, it is not deductible — and knowing the difference is easier when you have a maintenance history showing what was serviced during the tenancy.

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