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田纳西州的押金:法律怎么规定的

房东扣了我的押金

州法

法条怎么规定的

是否必须提供扣项清单
是
小额诉讼上限
$25,000
法条编号
Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-28-301 (Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act). CRITICAL SCOPE LIMIT: the whole chapter applies only in counties with more than 75,000 people according to the 2010 federal census (§ 66-28-102(a)) — 17 of Tennessee's 95 counties.
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Outside those 17 counties Tennessee has NO residential security-deposit statute at all.

受理投诉的机构
No Tennessee agency adjudicates residential security-deposit disputes, and none licenses or supervises landlords statewide.
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The nearest thing is the Tennessee Attorney General's Division of Consumer Affairs, which takes written complaints under the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act (615-741-4737; [email protected]; P.O. Box 20207, Nashville, TN 37202; online form at https://agtnprod.powerappsportals.us/DCA/) but states on its own page that it 'cannot give legal advice or represent private individuals' and 'cannot make formal decisions on whether a person or business has breached the law as only the courts can do this.' Whether the TCPA even reaches a residential landlord's retention of a deposit is not settled here (see open_questions). The real remedy is a suit in general sessions or circuit court. In Davidson County only, § 66-28-107 requires landlords to register with the local building-code agency and provides a $50-per-week fine for failure to register, enforced locally.

Deposit cap
No cap. Nothing in § 66-28-301, or elsewhere in Tenn. Code Ann. tit. 66, ch. 28, limits the amount of a residential security deposit, and there is no last-month's-rent or pet-deposit ceiling. Verified by reading the complete current text of § 66-28-301(a)-(h); the section is silent on amount.
Coverage split
Tennessee is two states for this purpose. The Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act applies only in counties with more than 75,000 people according to the 2010 federal census (Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-28-102(a)) — seventeen of the ninety-five counties.
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The statute is locked to the 2010 census and carries no 'or any subsequent census' clause, so a county that grew past 75,000 after 2010 is still outside the Act. In those seventeen counties the tenant uses the § 66-28-501(a) fourteen-day notice. Everywhere else Tennessee has no residential security-deposit statute at all: the claim is an ordinary breach of the lease, the fourteen days is the writer's own reasonable deadline rather than a statutory one, and there is no statutory penalty and no statutory attorney's fees. A Tennessee letter has to say which of the two it is on, because the remedies are not the same.

Local stacking
Almost none, by design. § 66-28-102(e), added by 2021 Pub. Ch. 182 § 1 effective July 1, 2021: 'In the counties in which this chapter applies, this chapter occupies and preempts the entire field of legislation concerning the regulation of landlords and tenants.
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The governing body of a county subject to this chapter shall not enact or enforce regulations that conflict with, or are an addition to, this chapter.' Separately, Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-35-102 bars local governments from enacting rent control. The one surviving local layer found is § 66-28-107 (residential landlord registration), which by § 66-28-107(c) applies only to a county with a metropolitan form of government and more than 500,000 people per the 2000 or a later census — i.e. Metropolitan Nashville/Davidson County: landlords must file name, phone and physical address plus each unit address with the local codes agency, may be charged up to $10/year, must report ownership changes within 30 days, and face a $50-per-week fine after a hearing noticed at least 15 days out. No Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville or Chattanooga security-deposit ordinance was found. Note that the preemption sentence names the governing body of a COUNTY; whether it equally bars a municipality inside a covered county is untested (see open_questions).

Penalty detail
Two separate levers, neither of them a multiplier. (1) Forfeiture — § 66-28-301(c): 'No landlord shall be entitled to retain any portion of a security deposit if the security deposit was not deposited in an account as required by subsection (a) and a listing of damages is not provided as required by subsection (b).' Read literally the conjunction is AND, i.e.
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the tenant may have to show BOTH that the deposit was never escrowed AND that no damage listing was provided; whether Tennessee courts read 'and' conjunctively or disjunctively is unresolved here and is listed in open_questions. The escrow half is often the easier half to prove, because § 66-28-301(h) makes the landlord disclose the account's location at lease signing. (2) Fee-shifting — § 66-28-501(a): 'the tenant may recover damages, obtain injunctive relief and recover reasonable attorney's fees for any noncompliance by the landlord with the rental agreement or any section of this chapter upon giving fourteen (14) days' written notice.' This is what gives a demand letter real teeth in Tennessee: the letter IS the statutory 14-day notice, and serving it is a precondition to the attorney's-fee award. § 66-28-106(b) says written notice goes 'to the last known or designated address contained in the lease agreement'; § 66-28-302 requires the landlord to have disclosed a name and address for service of notices and demands, and § 66-28-302(c) makes whoever failed to disclose an agent for service. Also note § 66-28-301(d): a tenant who disputes the damage listing is limited to the items the tenant specifically dissented from in writing, 'otherwise the tenant shall not be entitled to recover any damages under this section' — dissenting in writing at the inspection matters more in Tennessee than any deadline does. § 66-28-515(a) adds a duty to mitigate damages.

County overlays
The chapter is county-gated and the gate is frozen at the 2010 census. § 66-28-102(a) (as amended by 2012 Pub. Ch. 847 § 1, then narrowed by 2021 Pub. Ch.
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182 § 2, which deleted the words 'or any subsequent federal census'): 'This chapter applies only in counties having a population of more than seventy-five thousand (75,000), according to the 2010 federal census.' Per the Census Bureau's own 2010 county file for Tennessee, exactly 17 of 95 counties clear 75,000: Shelby (927,644), Davidson (626,681), Knox (432,226), Hamilton (336,463), Rutherford (262,604), Williamson (183,182), Montgomery (172,331), Sumner (160,645), Sullivan (156,823), Blount (123,010), Washington (122,979), Wilson (113,993), Bradley (98,963), Madison (98,294), Sevier (89,889), Maury (80,956), Anderson (75,129). Because the 2021 act froze the reference to 2010, later growth does NOT add counties: Putnam County (Cookeville) was 72,321 in 2010 and 79,854 in 2020, so it is over the threshold today and still outside the Act. In the other 78 counties there is no residential security-deposit statute at all — Tenn. Code Ann. tit. 66, ch. 7 (the general landlord-tenant chapter) contains no deposit provision, so the lease and common-law contract principles control: no escrow duty, no itemization duty, no forfeiture rule and no § 66-28-501 attorney's-fee hook. A Tennessee letter template must branch on the county of the rental property before it cites § 66-28-301.

Deadline detail
Tennessee sets NO deadline for returning a security deposit. Never print a statutory refund due date for a Tennessee tenant. The lever is Tenn. Code Ann.
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§ 66-28-501(a): the tenant gives the landlord fourteen days' written notice of the noncompliance, and only after that notice can the tenant recover damages, obtain injunctive relief and recover reasonable attorney's fees. Read it as what it is — a precondition to the tenant's remedies, not a clause that ends the tenancy on day fifteen. Separately, § 66-28-301 requires the landlord to inspect and itemize, and it gives the tenant 60 days after notification to respond before the tenant's own claim is forfeited.

Penalty statute
§ 66-28-301(c) (landlord forfeits the right to retain any portion of the deposit) and § 66-28-501(a) (damages, injunctive relief and reasonable attorney's fees for any noncompliance, on 14 days' written notice). There is NO multiplier, treble-damages clause or fixed statutory penalty anywhere in Tenn. Code Ann. tit.
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66, ch. 28 for security deposits.

Deadline statute
None exists. § 66-28-301 sets no deadline for returning the deposit and no deadline for delivering the damage listing.
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The only clocks in the section are: § 66-28-301(b)(1)(A) (move-out inspection on the day the tenant completely vacates or within 4 calendar days after; the landlord's optional notice of the tenant's right to be present is due on the landlord's request to vacate or within 5 days after the landlord receives the tenant's written notice of intent to vacate); § 66-28-301(f) (60 days for the TENANT to respond to the landlord's refund notification); § 66-28-301(g)(1)-(2) (landlord may charge for later-discovered physical damage only if found within 30 days after the tenant vacated or abandoned, or 7 days after a new tenant takes possession, whichever is earlier). The 14-day clock the tenant must run before suing is in a different section: § 66-28-501(a).

Interest or escrow
Escrow required, interest NOT required. § 66-28-301(a): 'All landlords of residential property requiring security deposits prior to occupancy are required to deposit all tenants' security deposits in an account used only for that purpose, in any bank or other lending institution subject to regulation by the state or any agency of the United States government.' § 66-28-301(h) requires the landlord to tell the tenant the LOCATION of that account at lease signing (the account number need not be given).
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There is no requirement that the account bear interest, no requirement to pay accrued interest to the tenant, and no administrative-fee allowance. § 66-28-301(e) lets the landlord pull the money out of the account and apply it to unpaid rent or other amounts due if the tenant leaves owing; § 66-28-301(f) lets the landlord pull it out and keep it if the tenant does not respond to a mailed refund notification within 60 days. § 66-28-305 relieves a landlord who sells the property in good faith of liability once the tenant has written notice of the conveyance and the deposit is transferred to the purchaser.

Limitations detail
UNSETTLED — § 66-28-301 contains no limitations clause of its own, so a general period supplies it, and no Tennessee case fixing the period for a security-deposit claim was verified here. The likely answer is six years under Tenn. Code Ann.
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§ 28-3-109(a)(3), 'Actions on contracts not otherwise expressly provided for,' because a deposit claim is contractual. The competing candidate is the three-year period in § 28-3-105 — (1) 'injuries to personal or real property', (2) 'detention or conversion of personal property', or (3) statutory-liability claims — and a claim framed as conversion of the deposit or as a statutory penalty could draw three years instead. Do not print a filing deadline to a Tennessee reader until the owner resolves this; treat three years as the safe outer limit in any copy that must state one.

Small claims statute
Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-15-501(d)(1) — general sessions courts have civil jurisdiction 'to the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) in all civil cases, both law and equity', with unlimited original jurisdiction in forcible entry and detainer and in actions to recover personal property; § 16-15-501(d)(2) excludes attorney fees, court costs and discretionary costs from that cap.
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Tennessee has no separate 'small claims court' — general sessions IS the small-claims forum. Venue for deposit disputes: § 66-28-301(d) ('a circuit or general sessions court of competent jurisdiction') and § 66-28-105(a) (general sessions and circuit courts have original jurisdiction over conduct governed by the chapter).

Itemized list statute
§ 66-28-301(b)(1)(B) (mutual inspection: landlord and tenant 'compile a comprehensive listing of any presently ascertainable damage to the unit that is the basis for any charge against the security deposit and the estimated dollar cost of repairing the damage'; both sign; a tenant who refuses to sign must state the…
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dissented items in writing) and § 66-28-301(b)(2)(A) (tenant unavailable or ineligible to inspect: the landlord may inspect alone and compile the same listing, and must send a written copy by certificate of mailing 'upon the tenant's written request'). Forfeiture consequence in § 66-28-301(c). Dispute route and dissent limitation in § 66-28-301(d).

Limitations period years
6

看完上面的数字,请务必读这一段

Tennessee's residential security-deposit rules live in Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-28-301, part of the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. Before anything else, check the county. Section 66-28-102(a) says the chapter "applies only in counties having a population of more than seventy-five thousand (75,000), according to the 2010 federal census," and a 2021 amendment deleted the old words "or any subsequent federal census," freezing the list. By the Census Bureau's own 2010 county file that is 17 of Tennessee's 95 counties: Shelby, Davidson, Knox, Hamilton, Rutherford, Williamson, Montgomery, Sumner, Sullivan, Blount, Washington, Wilson, Bradley, Madison, Sevier, Maury and Anderson. Everywhere else — including Putnam County, which passed 75,000 in the 2020 census — Tennessee simply has no security-deposit statute, and your rights come from the lease and ordinary contract law.

Inside those 17 counties, the surprise is what the statute does NOT say. There is no deadline for the landlord to return your money and no deadline to send you an itemized list. From 2004 to 2011 the law did give the landlord ten business days to inspect and itemize, but the General Assembly deleted that subsection outright in 2011 and replaced it with inspection rights, so much of what you will read online about a Tennessee "10-business-day" or "30-day" deposit deadline describes law that no longer exists. What the statute does require is an escrow account used only for deposits at a regulated bank, whose location must be disclosed to you when you sign the lease (§ 66-28-301(a), (h)); a right to be present at a move-out inspection held on the day you completely vacate or within four calendar days after, at which you and the landlord compile and sign a comprehensive listing of damage with the estimated dollar cost of repairs (§ 66-28-301(b)); and, if you disagree with an item, a written statement of the items you dissent from — § 66-28-301(d) limits your later lawsuit to exactly those items. There is no deposit cap, no interest requirement and no administrative-fee allowance anywhere in the section.

There is also no multiplier. Tennessee has no treble-damages or double-damages clause for deposits. Two levers replace it. First, § 66-28-301(c): a landlord "shall not be entitled to retain any portion of a security deposit" if the deposit was not escrowed as (a) requires and a damage listing was not provided as (b) requires — note that the statute joins those two failures with "and," so plan on showing both. Second, and more useful, § 66-28-501(a): a tenant "may recover damages, obtain injunctive relief and recover reasonable attorney's fees for any noncompliance by the landlord with the rental agreement or any section of this chapter upon giving fourteen (14) days' written notice." That fourteen-day notice is the whole point of a demand letter in Tennessee — it is a precondition to the fee award, and § 66-28-106(b) says written notice goes to the last known or designated address in the lease. One clock does run against you: under § 66-28-301(f), if the landlord mails a refund notification to your last known or reasonably determinable address and hears nothing back for sixty days, the landlord may take the money out of escrow and keep it.

If it goes to court, Tennessee has no separate small-claims court — general sessions courts handle these, with civil jurisdiction up to $25,000 (attorney fees, court costs and discretionary costs do not count toward that cap), and § 66-28-301(d) lets you file in either general sessions or circuit court. No state agency decides deposit disputes; the Attorney General's Division of Consumer Affairs takes complaints but says plainly that it cannot give legal advice or represent individuals. Local ordinances are essentially off the table: § 66-28-102(e) declares that in covered counties the chapter "occupies and preempts the entire field of legislation concerning the regulation of landlords and tenants," and no city deposit ordinance was found in Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville or Chattanooga. The lone local overlay is landlord registration with the codes agency in Metropolitan Nashville/Davidson County under § 66-28-107, which carries a $50-per-week fine for landlords who fail to register.

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官方来源。如果下面某个数字对你的案子有影响,请打开法条自己读一遍 —— 法律会修订,而且很多城市会在州法之上叠加更严的地方条例。

最近核实: 2026-09-04

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