Security Deposit Demand Letters
Irving, Texas · Tex. Prop. Code § 92.103

The Irving security deposit demand letter that gets deposits back.

Texas law gave your Irving landlord 30 days to return it or itemize. If that clock has run, an Irving security deposit demand letter puts Tex. Prop. Code § 92.103 to work on your side.

Stop asking. Start demanding.
Writing it costs nothing. $20 covers printing, certified postage and the return receipt.
30
days to return or itemize
3×
potential damages on wrongful withholding
$20
letter + certified mail, one-time

Last updated September 2026 · local figures: U.S. Census ACS 2024 5-year

Irving deposit math
Median rent in Irving$1,619/mo
Typical deposit ≈ one month≈$1,600
Statutory 3× on wrongful withholding$4,800
Fixed statutory penalty+$100
Landlord's potential exposure$4,900

Median gross rent: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 5-year (table B25064). Deposit example rounded to one month's rent; statutory figures are ceilings, and courts decide actual awards.

What Irving renters should know

Irving deposit law at a glance

The law that protects your deposit

Deposits in Irving are governed by Texas state law: Tex. Prop. Code § 92.103, § 92.109. Bad faith retention can make the landlord liable for $100 plus three times the amount wrongfully withheld, plus reasonable attorney's fees. Bad faith is presumed if the landlord misses the 30-day deadline. Full Texas deadline & penalty guide →

The court that would hear it

Deposit claims from Irving are filed in a Justice of the Peace Court in Dallas County. Texas JP courts hear claims up to $20,000, no lawyer required. A typical Irving deposit, even at the statute's $4,900 cap, fits under that limit, which is exactly why a statute-citing certified letter usually settles it first.

What happens after you answer the questions

You approve the wording first. Then it prints, goes out certified with return receipt requested, and comes back to you as a tracking number, a delivery record, and a signed PDF whose fingerprint proves the text never moved.

See how it works for the whole sequence and an honest comparison with doing it yourself.

Have it mailed, not downloaded.$20 covers the letter, the printing, the certified postage, and the return receipt — and you read every word before you pay.
Read my Irving letter
On the last page of your letter

The bit that stops them arguing

Not a logo that says “verified.” A short record of how and when you signed, printed on the letter your Irving landlord is holding, plus a code made from the letter's own words.

  • The demand paragraph
  • The signature record
  • The SHA-256 hash
  • Certified Mail with Return Receipt
Pin 1 · The demand paragraphThe paragraph names your state's statute, the amount your landlord kept, the deadline they missed, and gives them a firm deadline to send the money before the letter says what happens next. Every part of it comes from the answers you gave, printed in the order the law expects.
Pin 2 · The signature recordMethod (drawn or typed), date, time zone, IP, browser, and consent to sign electronically. Printed on the letter itself, so the person receiving it can see how it was signed. Nothing goes out until a real person signs.
Pin 3 · The SHA-256 hashA 64-character code built from every word in your letter, recorded with the date and time you signed. It is your signing record: paste it into the checker at /verify/ and it confirms the wording you hold is the wording you signed, unchanged. It is not proof of delivery; the certified mail record below is.
Pin 4 · Certified Mail with Return ReceiptSomeone at the other end has to sign. This is the proof: the certified mail receipt, the USPS tracking history, and the delivery signature with its date. The Postal Service records them, our mail partner passes them to us, and we email them to you and post them on your letter tracker. Your landlord cannot claim the letter never came.

The closing words above are the real ones our engine writes for Irving letters, statute and deadline included. The name, signature and codes are made up; yours carry your own record. The time is shown in the signer's own time zone, not ours.

That code is built from every word in your letter. Change one word and it no longer matches. Type it into our checker and it tells you the letter is the same one you signed. Try the checker on this Irving example →

What an Irving deposit is usually worth

The typical Irving household pays about $1,619 a month in gross rent (ACS 2024 5-year), and a deposit is commonly pitched at roughly that. That is about 15% above the Texas median of $1,403, which means deposits here run larger than the statewide picture suggests, and so does what you lose by writing one off.

More renters than owners live in Irving: about 62% of households rent. In a majority-renter city, deposit disputes are not an edge case; they are a routine feature of the housing market, and local courts see them constantly. The rule that governs what happens to that money is set at the state level, by Tex. Prop. Code § 92.103, § 92.109, and it applies in Irving exactly as it does anywhere else in Texas.

It is worth naming the imbalance plainly. To you that sum is next month’s rent or the cost of the move you just made. To a landlord holding a dozen of them it is a line item worth stalling on, because stalling has historically been free. A formal, dated, statute-citing demand is what makes it stop being free.

Leaving an Irving rental without losing the deposit

Smaller markets tend to run on informality, which is fine right up until it is not. When goodwill runs out, the renter with dated documents is in a much better position than the one with a friendly text history.

  • Do a final photo pass at handover. Every room, every surface, and the meter readings. Keep the originals: their embedded timestamps are what make them evidence rather than pictures.
  • Make the address handover provable. Email, text, certified mail, USPS change of address confirmation: any one of them, kept.
  • Confirm where formal notice should go. A management company address on a rent portal is often not an address that counts for serving anything.
  • Act once the window has gone. After 30 days you are not being pushy, you are being timely, and every further month weakens what you can prove.

Where an Irving renter would actually file

A landlord reading your letter is silently sizing up one thing: does this person actually know what happens next? It costs you five minutes to be someone who does.

Texas routes deposit claims to the Justice Court (Justice of the Peace), with a limit of $20,000. For a rental in Irving, that normally means the court serving Dallas County. Filing fees and procedure are set by the court. The Texas judiciary publishes its own small claims instructions and forms, which is the page to read before you file.

The forum is deliberately informal, which favors the party who turns up organized. Bring the lease, the photographs with their original dates intact, proof of the address you gave them, and the certified mail receipt for your letter.

Have it mailed, not downloaded.$20 covers the letter, the printing, the certified postage, and the return receipt — and you read every word before you pay.
Read my Irving letter

Irving renters, by the numbers

$1,619
median gross rent per month in Irving
62%
of Irving's ≈95,000 households rent their home
≈59,000
renter households on the same 30-day clock
$4,900
potential statutory exposure on a typical $1,600 deposit

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 5-year, tables B25064 & B25003 (Irving; Census place “Irving city”); Tex. Prop. Code § 92.103, § 92.109. Population ≈256,000.

Irving deposit questions

How long does a landlord in Irving have to return a security deposit?
30 days. The statute (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.103, § 92.109) requires the landlord to act within 30 days after the tenant surrenders the premises and provides a forwarding address. Miss it, and the law's remedies open up: Bad faith retention can make the landlord liable for $100 plus three times the amount wrongfully withheld, plus reasonable attorney's fees. Bad faith is presumed if the landlord misses the 30-day deadline.
Can I sue my landlord in small claims court in Irving?
Yes, that's exactly what the venue is for. Deposit claims from Irving are filed in a Justice of the Peace Court in Dallas County. Texas JP courts hear claims up to $20,000, no lawyer required. A demand letter sent by certified mail is the documented first step judges expect to see.
Is a demand letter worth it for a typical Irving deposit?
Median rent in Irving is $1,619 a month (U.S. Census, ACS 2024 5-year), and deposits typically run about one month's rent. Call it $1,600. Texas's statute puts up to $4,900 of exposure on a landlord who wrongfully withholds that deposit (a statutory ceiling; courts decide actual awards). The letter is $20 flat, certified mail included, and you read every word of it before paying.

General legal information, not legal advice. Court limits and city ordinances change; verify current rules or consult a licensed Texas attorney.

Read the whole letter first.Reading your Irving letter costs nothing. You decide after you have seen it.
Read my Irving letter
Irving · Renter guides

What to work out before you write to them

Nothing in Irving changes what Texas law says. It does change who you are dealing with, which makes knowing the answers below more useful, not less.

Deductions What a landlord can actually deduct An itemized statement is only as good as the charges on it. Unpaid rent and genuine damage are fair game. A great deal of what gets billed is neither. Read the guide → Wear and tear Normal wear and tear, or damage? Landlords lean on the ambiguity because renters rarely push back on it. In practice the line is clearer than it looks once you have seen where it falls, item by item. See the line → Evidence The walkthrough that pays for itself two years later Move-in documentation is the cheapest insurance in renting and the one renters skip. It costs an hour and settles arguments you have not had yet. Get the checklist → No response Your landlord has gone quiet Being weeks or months past the date does not weaken your claim. It is the fact the claim is built on. What to do →

Arguing about one specific charge?

Cleaning feesPaintingCarpet chargesNail and screw holesPet damage

Or run the whole list through the deduction checker for Irving renters.

Irving · Keep reading

The rest of what is here

Free to read, in the order most Irving renters need it.

Other Texas cities

Deposit law is the same across Texas. Rent, venue and local rules are not, so each of these has its own page.

Not renting in Irving any more? We send statute-cited security deposit demand letters beyond Irving, Texas in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, each built on that state's own statute.

Irving · Free help

Where to get help near Irving

Nothing on this page has to be done through us. These are the free routes open to a renter in Irving.

Government and nonprofit resources, listed because they are useful. We are not affiliated with any of them, and none of them is affiliated with us. Every link here was checked on August 30, 2026.

Send the letter your Irving landlord can't ignore.

Demand my deposit back