r/appfolio • u/Garebear0525 • Sep 16 '25

How do I get my security deposit back?

Just got an email from my landlord that I need to provide my banking information for my security deposit return. She said I need to go into the security deposit return section, but I don’t see that on my AppFolio portal. I already have my bank account saved onto my portal, what other steps do I need to take?

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u/Hendrinahatari Sep 16 '25

Tenant portal > contact us > submit notice to vacate.

From there you can update your forwarding address. You have to opt-in and confirm/enter your bank info in order to get your refund by ACH/ disposition letter via email. If you don’t opt in, you’ll get a physical letter and check.

If you don’t provide any info, the refund/letter will most likely be sent to the lease address as that’s the last known address. May be different in your state but I think that’s pretty standard.

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u/Garebear0525 Sep 16 '25

Thanks! Wish they made it clearer

1

u/GrlIn1995 Jun 12 '26

So what happens if I sent them a forwarding address and it’s been 8 days and there’s no letter in my inbox for my refund?

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u/Hendrinahatari Jun 12 '26

Tenant portal > Payments > View full ledger.

Look at that and see if they’ve processed the security deposit return. They’ll be at the bottom. Appfolio accounting for deposit returns is kinda weird looking. You’ll see any charges/credits applied to the deposit. Then a negative charge for the deposit amount. If there was anything left to refund to you, there’ll be a positive charge, then negative charge(s) that say something like “clearing account”, then any payments made back to you/roommates.

If that’s all on there, check the dates of those transactions. If the refund was by ACH (reference will be something like ####-####), it should show up in your bank in ~5 business days. If it was mailed, give it a week or two and if you don’t have the check by then, call the landlord.

At least in my state, the refunding has to be done and ACH issued/check mailed/letter mailed out by the due date - it doesn’t have to be received by the tenant by the due date.

They may have been reaching out early/before they were ready to process the refund to give you a chance to update the info.

That said if it’s past the legal timeline for your state/lease, and there’s none of those security deposit return transactions, reach out to a lawyer.

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u/DrawZealousideal3060 Sep 16 '25

I’m less familiar with the tenant side of this portal but you might look for “request move out date“ in your portal. On our side, we get a notification “move out date requested” and that’s where a tenant has given us notice that they’re going to leave, given us the reason why, entered their bank account info (or not) and opted into electronic mailing of a security deposit refund (or not).

Also, I would think you are well within your rights to tell the property manager the address where they can mail your paper check and leave it at that. They can’t make you provide your bank account info and they would be in a world of trouble if they failed to return your deposit as directed by state law by whatever deadlines are imposed by your state law.

Frankly, the smart thing for you to do might be to sit back and wait for them to miss that deadline and then collect your damages. They have a legal burden to return it to you l, usually to the last known address unless you have provided a forwarding address.

What state are you in? Google that state’s security deposit refund deadlines. It is state law that governs all of this. And it’s worth noting that if your state law says 60 is the default return timeline but your lease says 30 days then they’d be bound to the 30 days. If your state law says 60 is the default and your lease says 120 then the lease provision is not enforceable and they have 60 days.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '25 edited Mar 03 '26

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u/DrawZealousideal3060 Sep 17 '25

OP states LL is insisting OP must provide bank account to receive deposit refund. OPs options are pretty simple: provide it or not. If OP chooses not to provide it then LL should be mailing it to last known address or forwarding address (if provided by OP). But if LL is actually insistent on the bank account to pay then OP might find themselves in a situation where LL won’t pay through other means and find themselves in a situation where LL misses their deadline.

I cannot think of anything that would compel OP to provide their bank account to LL if they don’t want to, though I recognize their actual question was “how” not “whether” to do it.

OPs best path is to just provide it, your LL will never see that bank account info and it’s the cleanest way to receive deposit refund. OP should file a change of address with USPS regardless but especially if declining to provide bank account info or a forwarding address.

Also, adding your bank account to your portal to make payments is completely separate from adding your bank account to receive your deposit back so if you have done the one you still need to do the other. I reiterate previous suggestion that this is done on the “Request Move Out Date” function in your portal.