Cashiers checks can be shredded and the funds won’t be removed from your account, you shouldn’t have to deposit your own check into your own account. Actually, you shouldn’t be able to deposit the check because it can only be cashed by the person it’s made out to.

Either way, that’s not the issue here and it’s just confusing things. The issue is that you paid a deposit for a room, you returned the room in good condition (right???) and now you’re owed your deposit back.

Like I said before, next steps for you should be to take pictures of the room to show its in good condition, send the landlord an email asking for the deposit back and nothing else, and if they say “no” then demand they show you the reasons for keeping it.

To be clear, do you mean you wrote a personal check or is this a cashiers check or something else? This could matter.

If I wrote a personal check for a deposit, I’d expect that person to cash the check immediately so they are holding the money and not just a slip of paper. When the deposit is due to be returned, I’d expect to get a check made out to me which I then go cash.

If they just wanted a check made out to them which they physically hold until the event is over, you’d simply rip up the check when it’s returned and money should never have left the account.

Either way, they really should have clearly laid the plan and had it documented somehow. Did you sign something for the room? If the plan was just to hold onto a physical check which they accidentally cashed, I’d write them an email asking for an explanation on when the money will be returned. I’d also go take pictures of the room ASAP and ask them to confirm there was no damage.

If things escalate, you can threaten to just withhold the $200 from your next rent payment, but be sure to check your local rental laws about this to be sure. In my state there are clear timelines for when a tenant can do things like this. If this is a big company, they should be intimately aware of rental laws and what your options are.