Arkansas security deposit law

The Arkansas Attorney General's published guidance describes a two-month-rent maximum security deposit for covered rentals and says the deposit law applies to landlords renting six or more dwellings. This page has not read the current Code provisions on the cap, coverage or penalties. Confirm all applicable coverage conditions and exceptions before collecting a deposit; the overview is not a complete statutory coverage test. The landlord-tenant act refers deposit questions to those Code sections.

Arkansas Attorney General: deposit guidance Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-501

• The landlord-tenant act says the deposit part of the Code decides whether a security deposit is required and the rights, duties and remedies of landlord and tenant for a deposit. Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-501
• Cities, counties and other local governments may not control the amount charged for rental deposits, except as the Code's deposit section provides. Ark. Code Ann. § 14-54-1409(b) See Rent control and local rules on the Arkansas page

Return the deposit within 60 days after the tenancy ends. You may keep money for accrued unpaid rent and for damages you suffered because the tenant did not comply with the rental agreement, but only as itemized in a written notice delivered to the tenant together with the rest of the deposit, due 60 days after the tenancy ends and the tenant delivers possession. Which landlords this rule covers, and the penalty for missing it, are in sections this page could not read.

Ark. Code Ann. § 18-16-305

• You comply by mailing the written notice and any payment by first class mail to the tenant's last known address. Ark. Code Ann. § 18-16-305(b)(1)
• If the letter with the payment comes back and you cannot find the tenant after reasonable effort, the money becomes yours 180 days after the date you mailed it. Ark. Code Ann. § 18-16-305(b)(2)
• Since Act 559 of 2009 the return period in this section is 60 days from the end of the tenancy and delivery of possession, and the landlord-tenant act's former forwarding-address rule (as enacted in 2007) is gone, so the clock does not wait for a forwarding address. Ark. Code Ann. § 18-16-305(a) Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-501 (Act 1004 of 2007) Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-501 (Act 559 of 2009)
• A tenant who ends the lease under the quality standards remedy gets back any deposit recoverable under the deposit sections; if the standards were met, you may apply the deposit to damage to the premises. Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-502(d)(2) See Tenant repair remedies on the Arkansas page

This page could not read the Arkansas deposit sections outside the landlord-tenant act, so it cannot say whether a separate account or interest is required. None of the sections read mentions either.

No section read requires a move-in checklist, but the quality standards law rewards one. If you give the tenant, when possession is available, a written form to list defects in the six quality standards, you are treated as meeting those standards when the tenant signs it without noting a defect and takes possession, or does not return it within two business days.

Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-502(c)(1)

• The six standards are hot and cold running water, electricity, potable drinking water, sanitary sewer and plumbing, a functioning roof and building envelope, and heating and air conditioning where it served the home when the lease was made. Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-502(a) See Repairs and habitability on the Arkansas page