About TenantShield
TenantShield turns your move-out details into a demand letter that cites the statute your landlord is actually bound by. This page explains exactly how we built the legal data behind it, where every number comes from, and what this tool does not do.
Most tenants who never get their deposit back don't lose because they were wrong. They lose because they never sent anything, or they sent an angry email that cited nothing. A letter that names the statute, the deadline your landlord already missed, and the penalty they're exposed to is a different document — it tells a landlord the next step is small claims court, and it puts a date on it.
That's the entire product. One letter, $39, no subscription.
We are not a law firm, and we do not provide legal advice. Nothing on this site creates an attorney-client relationship. TenantShield is self-help software: you provide the facts, the app assembles a letter, you review it, and you decide whether to send it.
No lawyer reviews your letter. Some services imply an attorney checks every document. We don't do that, so we don't claim it.
We don't promise you'll get your money back. We have not published a “success rate,” because we don't have one we could honestly measure. Any service quoting a precise win rate for a letter it merely mailed should be asked how it verified the outcome.
We don't file, mail, or represent you. You send the letter. You stay in control of every decision, including whether to sign it.
You are always free to consult a licensed attorney in your state, and for some situations you should — see when a letter isn't the right tool.
Security deposit law is state law, and it is not uniform. Deadlines range from 14 days to 60. Some states start the clock at move-out; others start it when the tenant gives notice, or when the landlord finishes determining deductions. Some impose double or triple damages for a willful violation; others impose none. A handful of cities layer their own ordinance on top of the state rule.
Getting that wrong is not a cosmetic error — it produces a letter that cites the wrong deadline to the one person motivated to notice.
So we audited it, jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
Coverage
All 51 state-level jurisdictions (50 states + the District of Columbia), plus 15 city-level ordinance overlays where a local rule meaningfully changes the state default.
Primary sources first
Every jurisdiction was verified against the statute text itself — the actual code section, not a summary of it. Where a legal summary site and the statute disagreed, the statute won. Every state page names the statute we verified against, and shows the date we last checked it.
Recent legislation tracked
Deposit law changed in several states across 2025–2026, and stale data is the most common failure mode in this category. Among others, we track California's AB 2801 (photo documentation) and AB 414 (electronic refunds), Colorado's HB25-1249 (pre-suit notice), and the New York GOL § 7-107 rent-stabilized carve-out.
One source of truth
The deadline shown on our homepage, the deadline on a state's page, and the deadline cited inside your letter are drawn from the same audited data — not maintained as separate hand-copied lists that quietly drift apart.
Nuance is preserved, not flattened
Where a state's rule genuinely branches — a different deadline depending on whether there were deductions, or a rule that only covers certain landlords — we show the branch instead of printing one tidy number that would be wrong for half the people reading it.
Legal data is only as good as the day it was last checked. Most sites never tell you that day, which means you cannot tell the difference between a page verified last month and one that has been rotting for years.
Each state page on this site displays the date we last verified that jurisdiction against its primary source. That date means a human read the statute — it is not bumped automatically.
If a law changed and we haven't caught it yet, tell us: support@gettenantshield.com. We'd rather be corrected than be confidently wrong.
We'd rather explain this than let you guess.
What this means honestly: AI is good at writing a clear, calm, well-organized demand letter. It is not good at knowing the law reliably. So we let it do the first job, and we did the second one ourselves — by hand, against the statutes.
A demand letter is a first move. It's the right first move in most deposit disputes, and it's often the last one you need. But it is not the right tool for everything, and we'd rather say so than sell you a letter that can't help.
Consider talking to a licensed attorney or your local legal aid office if:
Many tenants qualify for free help. Your state or county legal aid organization is a good first call, and it costs nothing to ask.
TenantShield is operated by TenantShield LLC, a limited liability company registered in the State of Florida (filing number L26000278228).
We are a small, independent operation — not a law firm, and not a marketplace that sells your information to one. We don't run ads on this site, we don't sell your data, and we don't route you to a lawyer for a referral fee.
Our correction policy: if you find an error in our legal data, email support@gettenantshield.com and tell us. If you're right, we fix it and update that jurisdiction's “last verified” date. We will not quietly edit and pretend it was always correct.
You don't have to buy anything to find out where you stand. Look up your state's deadline, statute, and penalty — if your landlord has already blown the deadline, you'll see it.
Check my state's deposit rule →