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

The San Antonio security deposit demand letter that gets deposits back.

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

Demand my deposit back
Read every word first of your San Antonio letter. $20 only if you want it mailed.
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

San Antonio deposit math
Median rent in San Antonio$1,324/mo
Typical deposit ≈ one month≈$1,300
Statutory 3× on wrongful withholding$3,900
Fixed statutory penalty+$100
Landlord's potential exposure$4,000

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 San Antonio renters should know

San Antonio deposit law at a glance

The law that protects your deposit

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

Where the San Antonio letter ends up

You read the whole letter before paying anything. You sign it, we print it, and it goes out by USPS Certified Mail with return receipt requested. You get the tracking number, the delivery record and a signed PDF carrying a fingerprint of its exact wording.

The full walk-through, including what doing this yourself costs, is on how it works.

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 San Antonio 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 San Antonio 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 San Antonio 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. Run the example code through the checker →

What a San Antonio deposit is usually worth

The typical San Antonio household pays about $1,324 a month in gross rent (ACS 2024 5-year), and a deposit is commonly pitched at roughly that. That tracks the Texas median of $1,403 fairly closely, so what is typical here is what is typical statewide.

About 48% of San Antonio households rent rather than own, roughly 265,201 of them. That is a large enough population that the local court is thoroughly used to hearing deposit claims from tenants without lawyers. 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 San Antonio 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 a San Antonio rental without losing the deposit

At this size, most tenancies here run through a management company rather than an individual, and that changes the practical problem. The person who inspected your unit, the office holding the deposit and the entity legally on the hook are often three different parties, and mail sent to the wrong one vanishes.

  • Photograph everything on the day you hand back the keys, not the week before. Original files, not screenshots. The date lives inside the file, and a screenshot throws it away.
  • Send the forwarding address somewhere it leaves a trace. A dated message beats a remembered conversation every time, and you will not get to re-run this later.
  • Check the name on your lease against who you have been emailing. They frequently differ in a market this size, and only one of them is the right recipient.
  • Do not wait for the deadline to feel comfortable. Texas gives them 30 days. Once that has passed, waiting adds nothing but risk to your own evidence.

Where a San Antonio 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 San Antonio, that normally means the court serving Bexar 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 San Antonio letter

San Antonio renters, by the numbers

$1,324
median gross rent per month in San Antonio
48%
of San Antonio's ≈555,000 households rent their home
≈265,000
renter households on the same 30-day clock
$4,000
potential statutory exposure on a typical $1,300 deposit

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 5-year, tables B25064 & B25003 (San Antonio; Census place “San Antonio city”); Tex. Prop. Code § 92.103, § 92.109. Population ≈1.5 million.

San Antonio deposit questions

How long does a landlord in San Antonio 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 San Antonio?
Yes, that's exactly what the venue is for. Deposit claims from San Antonio are filed in a Justice of the Peace Court in Bexar 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 San Antonio deposit?
Median rent in San Antonio is $1,324 a month (U.S. Census, ACS 2024 5-year), and deposits typically run about one month's rent. Call it $1,300. Texas's statute puts up to $4,000 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.

Skip the trip to the Post Office.$20 covers the letter, the printing, the certified postage and the return receipt. No stamps, no green card to fill in wrong, no queue.
Read my San Antonio letter
San Antonio · Renter guides

What to settle before you write to them

Deposit law here comes from the state. What varies is which of these four questions your own dispute turns on, so it is worth knowing before you write to anyone.

Deductions What a landlord can actually deduct Texas makes the landlord put their deductions in writing. That list is the whole argument, and most of them do not survive being read closely. Read the guide → Wear and tear The line landlords blur most often 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 What to photograph on the day you hand back keys Almost every deposit case turns on documents rather than testimony. This is the checklist for producing them while you still can. Get the checklist → No response When the money simply never shows up Most renters read a missed deadline as their own failure. It is the landlord's obligation that lapsed, not your right. What to do →

Arguing about one specific charge?

Cleaning chargesPaintingCarpetHoles in the wallsDamage blamed on a pet

Or run the whole list through the deduction checker for San Antonio renters.

San Antonio · Keep reading

Worth reading next

Free to read, in the order most San Antonio 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 San Antonio any more? We send security deposit demand letters written the way San Antonio, Texas letters are in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, each built on that state's own statute.

San Antonio · Free help

San Antonio tenant resources

Deposit law is set in Texas, but the office you would call and the court you would file in are closer to home. These are the ones that matter for San Antonio.

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 San Antonio landlord can't ignore.

Put them on notice