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PalpitationNo3106 t1_ja8auqi wrote

Reply to comment by Oldbayistheshit in Things DC does really well by erichinnw

Your landlord holds your security deposit in a separate bank account (and it has to be a DC bank account) after one year whatever interest your account accrues is yours when it is returned to you. It’s not a lot of money, but it helps keep landlords honest about

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Rude_Macaroon3741 t1_jac7tbm wrote

Wow never heard of that and certainly didn’t get a higher deposit back when I was a renter here? Thank you - I need to go look into this bc we are about move to London for a few years and plan to rent out our house while we’re gone.

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PalpitationNo3106 t1_jac94ja wrote

Well interest rates for escrow accounts have been almost nothing for years. But yes. You must open an escrow account at a bank in DC. You must tell your tenants what bank you are using, and every six months what the interest rate for the previous period was. Just remember that the security deposit is the tenant’s money, not the landlord’s

For a small landlord, or for any individual tenants, it’s a small amount of money (my last security deposit in DC was $500 (I lived there for 13 years so it’s been a while) even over that time at .25% it’s not much. But imagine being bozzutto, and having $2000 from each of 5000 tenants. The temptation to use that $10m for an investment must be high.

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