If your landlord is withholding your deposit without proper justification, you have the law on your side. We act for tenants to recover the fianza — formal demand, negotiation, and court action where it's needed.
The end of a tenancy is where most rental disputes happen — and the deposit is almost always the flashpoint. Under Spanish law your fianza is your money, held by the landlord (and lodged with the regional housing authority) as security against genuine damage or unpaid rent. When you leave the property in reasonable condition and your account is clear, it must be returned. A landlord who hangs on to it "to be safe", deducts for routine cleaning, or simply stops replying is not exercising a right — they are withholding money that belongs to you.
Foreign tenants are targeted for this more often than locals, on the assumption that someone who has left the country, does not speak Spanish, or does not know the process will give up. Most do. But the legal position is usually straightforward, and a properly drafted demand from a Spanish lawyer changes the conversation immediately — because the landlord now knows you understand your rights and are prepared to enforce them.
A landlord may only keep what they can genuinely justify and evidence.
Unpaid rent or bills you owe at the end of the tenancy; the cost of repairing genuine damage you (or your guests) caused beyond normal use; and removing items or rubbish left behind. Each should be backed by evidence — photos, invoices, statements.
Routine end-of-tenancy cleaning; ordinary wear and ageing (faded paint, worn flooring, minor marks); pre-existing defects; "just in case"; or because they would simply prefer to. Vague deductions with no breakdown or proof are not valid.
The process is designed to get your money back with the least cost and delay, escalating only as far as it needs to:
You send us the contract, the deposit details, and what's happened. We tell you whether your claim is strong and what it's worth.
We send the landlord a written legal demand (burofax) setting out your rights, the sum owed, and a deadline to return it.
Most disputes settle here. We deal with the landlord or their representative directly to recover the deposit in full or on agreed terms.
If the landlord still refuses, we pursue the claim through the Spanish courts, where the burden is on them to justify any deductions.
The fianza is the formal security deposit defined by Spanish tenancy law. For a long-term residential lease it is set at one month's rent; for a non-residential or seasonal let it is two months. Crucially, the deposit is not simply money the landlord pockets and holds in a drawer. The law requires the landlord to lodge the fianza with the housing body of the relevant autonomous community — bodies such as the IVIMA in Madrid, the AVS or equivalent agencies in Andalusia, Valencia, Catalonia and elsewhere. That lodging requirement exists precisely to protect tenants: the deposit is held by a public authority and released back when the tenancy ends correctly.
Where a landlord has failed to lodge the deposit at all — which is more common than it should be, particularly with smaller private landlords letting to foreigners — it does not extinguish your right to its return. If anything, it weakens the landlord's position, because they have not complied with their own legal obligation. When we assess a claim, one of the first things we establish is whether the deposit was properly lodged, because it shapes how the recovery is framed.
Separately from the fianza, many contracts also ask for an additional guarantee (garantía adicional) — extra money or a bank guarantee on top of the one month. For leases within the protected term this additional guarantee is capped by law at the equivalent of two months' rent. So the most a landlord can legitimately hold at the start of a standard residential tenancy is, broadly, one month's fianza plus up to two months' additional guarantee. A demand for four, five or six months upfront is outside the normal legal framework and is itself a reason to take advice before paying.
Over and over, the same handful of justifications appear when a deposit is withheld. Almost none of them stand up when tested. Here are the most common, and the legal reality behind each:
Because almost every deposit dispute turns on this distinction, it is worth being precise. Normal wear and tear is the deterioration that happens simply from living in a home: carpets that thin along a hallway, paint that dulls, a few picture-hook holes, limescale on a tap, a worn kitchen worktop, doors that have loosened slightly on their hinges. None of this is chargeable to the tenant. It is the inevitable consequence of ordinary use over time, and the rent already compensates the landlord for it.
Damage, by contrast, is harm caused by accident, neglect or misuse beyond what ordinary living produces: a cracked hob, a burn in a worktop, a broken door, a stain that has soaked through and ruined a carpet, holes that go beyond hanging a picture, a wall colour changed without consent. These can legitimately be deducted — but only at a fair, evidenced cost, and with allowance made for the age and condition of the item. A landlord cannot charge you the price of a brand-new sofa to replace one that was already ten years old; the deduction should reflect the item's remaining value, not its replacement cost from new.
This is why dated move-in and move-out photographs are so powerful. They turn an argument about opinion into a comparison of fact — and they very often end the dispute before it starts.
Not every tenancy is one tenant and one landlord on a clean twelve-month lease. The deposit position shifts in some common situations, and knowing where you stand avoids a costly assumption.
Where several people rent a property together, the deposit may be held jointly, and the contract usually treats the tenants as collectively responsible. That can mean the landlord deducts for damage caused by one flatmate from the deposit of all — and that recovering your individual share depends on how the contract and any internal agreement between flatmates are written. If you are leaving a shared flat, do not assume your portion will simply be handed back; the mechanics matter, and we can advise on how to protect your share specifically.
Sometimes a letting agency, rather than the landlord directly, takes and holds the deposit. This adds a layer: the agency may claim it is only following the landlord's instructions, while the landlord points at the agency. Neither can lawfully withhold your money without justification, and a formal demand can be directed at both. We identify who is actually holding the funds and pursue the right party.
If you exercise your legal right to leave after six months with proper notice, that does not entitle the landlord to keep your deposit as a penalty. Any agreed compensation for early departure is a separate matter from the deposit, and the deposit itself must still be returned subject only to genuine deductions. Landlords sometimes conflate the two to justify keeping everything — they are not the same thing.
If your home is sold during the tenancy, your deposit and your rights generally transfer with it — the new owner steps into the landlord's shoes. Confusion over "who holds the deposit now" is a frequent cause of disputes at the end of such tenancies. We trace where the deposit went and hold the correct party responsible for returning it.
If there is one practical lesson that runs through every deposit dispute we handle, it is this: the tenant who documented the property wins. A deposit argument is, at heart, a disagreement about the condition of a home at two points in time — the day you moved in and the day you left. Whoever can prove those two states with dated evidence holds the stronger hand, and it is almost always the tenant who is in a position to create that evidence.
At move-in, photograph every room, including existing marks, worn surfaces, appliances and their condition, and anything already damaged. Date the photos and, ideally, email them to yourself or the landlord so the date is independently fixed. If the landlord provides an inventory (inventario), read it, correct anything inaccurate before signing, and keep a copy. If they do not provide one, consider making your own and sending it to them — an unanswered inventory you sent on day one is still useful evidence later.
At check-out, repeat the exercise: photograph the cleaned, emptied property in the same detail, take final meter readings, and keep proof that you returned the keys and when. Put your request for the deposit in writing at the same time, with your bank details and a clear, reasonable deadline. This simple discipline does two things: it makes a wrongful deduction far harder for the landlord to sustain, and it makes our job — recovering the money if they try — quick and decisive. Tenants who arrive with dated before-and-after photographs rarely have to go further than a single formal demand.
It is an uncomfortable truth that foreign tenants lose deposits more often than locals, and it is rarely an accident. The calculation a difficult landlord makes is simple: a tenant who is leaving the country, does not read Spanish fluently, has never dealt with a Spanish court, and assumes pursuing a few hundred or few thousand euros from abroad is hopeless, is unlikely to fight. So the deposit is quietly kept, the messages go unanswered, and the gamble usually pays off — because most people do give up.
That calculation collapses the moment a Spanish lawyer writes on your behalf. A formal demand in Spanish, citing the law, setting out the sum and a deadline, and signalling that court action will follow, tells the landlord that the easy assumption was wrong. Many deposits are returned within days of that letter, precisely because the landlord never expected resistance. For the cases that do not settle, the remote court process means being abroad is no barrier — we represent you, and the landlord faces a claim they cannot simply ignore.
You should not write off your deposit just because you have moved on or moved home. It is your money, the law is generally on your side, and the cost of recovering it is usually a fraction of the sum at stake. The only thing that reliably defeats a deposit claim is the tenant deciding, in advance, that it is not worth trying.
The honest answer is that it depends on the landlord, not on you. Where a landlord is simply disorganised or testing whether you will chase, a formal demand often produces the deposit within a week or two. Where a landlord is determined to keep the money, the process takes longer — but it also becomes more one-sided in your favour, because they will eventually have to justify their position to a court rather than just to you.
A realistic picture looks like this. The initial assessment takes a day or two once we have your documents. A formal demand (burofax) gives the landlord a short deadline, commonly ten to fifteen days, to respond. A great many disputes resolve in that window. If they do not, the matter can proceed to a court claim; the timescale there varies by court and region, but for the amounts typically involved the procedure is designed to be proportionate rather than drawn-out. Throughout, we keep you updated in plain English and never let a deadline pass.
What you should not do is let time quietly run on without acting. While deposit claims do not expire quickly, evidence gets harder to gather, memories fade, and landlords grow more comfortable assuming you have given up. The sooner the first formal step is taken, the stronger and faster the recovery tends to be.
It happens more often than you might expect, particularly with smaller private landlords and informal room lets: rent was paid, a deposit changed hands, but nothing was ever properly signed. Tenants in this position often assume they have no rights and no way to recover their money. That assumption is wrong. A tenancy can exist in law even without a formal written contract, and your deposit is still recoverable.
What matters is evidence that the arrangement existed and that you paid: bank transfers or receipts for the rent and the deposit, messages agreeing the terms, utility bills in your name, your empadronamiento at the address, or anything else that shows you lived there on agreed terms. From those pieces we can establish the tenancy and pursue the deposit just as we would under a signed lease. If anything, a landlord who never issued a proper contract is in a weaker position, not a stronger one — they cannot point to terms they never put in writing. So if you paid a deposit on a handshake and it has not come back, do not write it off; send us what you have and we will tell you whether it can be recovered. In our experience, the absence of paperwork tends to worry the tenant far more than it should, and the landlord far less than it ought to.
There is no single fixed national deadline, but the deposit must be returned within a reasonable time after you hand back the property and your account is clear — commonly within around a month. Unjustified delay beyond that, with no breakdown of any deductions, is a sign the deposit is being wrongly withheld, and interest may become payable on late returns.
Not for routine end-of-tenancy cleaning or ordinary wear. A landlord can only deduct for genuine damage beyond normal use, or for sums you actually owe, and must be able to evidence it. "Cleaning" and "wear and tear" are among the most common invalid deductions we challenge.
A formal written legal demand (typically by burofax) usually breaks the silence, because it shows you understand your rights and are prepared to act. If the landlord still refuses, the claim can be pursued through the Spanish courts, where they must justify keeping any of your money.
Yes. We handle deposit recovery remotely and act for tenants who have already returned to the UK, Ireland, the US, or elsewhere. Being abroad does not weaken your claim — and it is exactly the situation some landlords gamble on.
We quote a clear fee upfront after assessing your case, so you know the cost before committing. We will also tell you honestly whether the sum at stake makes the claim worth pursuing — sometimes a single firm demand is all that's needed.
Not before taking advice. Accepting a partial sum described as "full and final settlement" can end your right to claim the rest. Let us assess what you are actually owed first — the difference is often worth far more than the cost of advice.
Helpful evidence includes the signed contract, any move-in/move-out inventory or photos, proof that rent and bills were paid, your written request for the deposit, and the landlord's replies. Even without all of it we can often act — but the more you have, the stronger and faster the recovery.
In some cases, yes — late or improper retention of a deposit can attract interest, and where a claim reaches court the losing party may be ordered to contribute to costs. We will set out what you can realistically recover when we assess the case.
The legal fianza for a long-term residential let is one month's rent whether furnished or not. A furnished property may justify a larger additional guarantee (within the legal cap) to cover the furniture, and a clear inventory matters more — but the basic fianza and the rules on what can be deducted are the same.
Yes, in your favour. Landlords are legally required to lodge the fianza with the relevant regional housing body. Failing to do so is the landlord's breach, not yours, and it does not affect your right to have the deposit returned. If anything it weakens their position, and we factor it into how we frame the claim.
No. You are not responsible for pre-existing defects or for the ordinary ageing of the property. This is exactly why dated move-in photos and a signed inventory are so valuable — they prove the condition you took the property in, and stop a landlord charging you for damage that was there before you arrived.
No. We act for English-speaking tenants throughout and handle every communication with the landlord, agency or court in Spanish on your behalf. You deal with us in plain English, and we deal with the Spanish side. Not speaking the language is one of the very reasons landlords gamble on non-payment — and one of the reasons getting representation changes the outcome.
Send us the contract and what's happened, and we'll tell you straight away whether your claim is strong and what it's worth. Clear fee, quoted upfront.
The information on this page is general guidance only and does not constitute legal advice. Spanish tenancy law (the Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos) and regional housing rules vary by autonomous community and change over time. Deposit-return timeframes, permitted deductions, and procedures depend on the specific facts and region. Always obtain advice on your circumstances before acting. Platinum Legal Spain is an independent English-speaking legal practice acting for tenants across Spain.