Massachusetts Security Deposit Law: What Quincy, MA Landlords Get Wrong (2026)
LANDLORD EDUCATION
Massachusetts Security Deposit Law: What Quincy, MA Landlords Get Wrong (2026)
August 28, 2026
By Krista Recker
Massachusetts has one of the strictest security deposit laws in the country, and the penalties do not care whether you meant well. Under Massachusetts General Laws chapter 186, section 15B, a landlord who takes a security deposit has to follow a specific set of steps on a specific timeline. Certain failures cost you the right to keep any part of the deposit at all, and a narrower set of failures exposes you to three times the deposit amount plus 5 percent interest, court costs, and the tenant's attorney's fees.
The short version: you can collect a security deposit of no more than one month's rent, it has to sit in a separate interest-bearing account in a Massachusetts bank, you owe the tenant receipts, you owe a signed statement of condition within 10 days, you owe interest annually, and you owe the deposit back within 30 days of move-out with a sworn itemized list if you keep any of it. Miss a step and the exposure is real.
If you own a two-family in Wollaston or a condo you rent near the Red Line, this is the single highest-risk piece of paperwork in your business. Here is how it actually works.
Who This Applies To
This applies to any landlord in Massachusetts who takes a security deposit on a residential tenancy, whether you own one condo or twenty units. It does not matter that you are a small owner-occupant landlord rather than a management company. The statute does not scale down for hobby landlords.
It applies whether the tenancy is a written lease or a tenancy at will. It applies whether the tenant is a stranger or a friend of a friend. And it applies from the moment you accept the money, not from the moment the lease starts.
If you do not take a security deposit at all, most of section 15B simply does not apply to you. That is not an accident, and it is why a meaningful number of experienced Massachusetts landlords have stopped taking deposits altogether. More on that below.
The Only Four Things You Can Legally Collect Up Front
Massachusetts limits what a landlord can charge at the start of a tenancy to four items:
- First month's rent
- Last month's rent
- A security deposit of no more than one month's rent
- The cost of purchasing and installing a new lock and key
That is the complete list. Application fees, move-in fees, pet deposits, amenity fees, cleaning fees, administrative fees, and background check fees charged by the landlord are not permitted under Massachusetts law. If you have seen these charged elsewhere, that does not make them legal here.
Worth naming clearly: the right to take a security deposit at all is conditioned on complying with the deposit and statement of condition requirements that follow. The deposit is not a standalone entitlement.
One more item worth naming, since it changed recently: as of August 1, 2025, Massachusetts requires that the party who hires the broker pays the broker fee. A landlord cannot pass their own broker's fee to a tenant who did not hire that broker.
The Paperwork Clock
Most security deposit trouble is not theft. It is a missed deadline. Here is the timeline in one place.
| Deadline | What you owe the tenant |
|---|---|
| At the time you receive the deposit | A written receipt showing the amount, the date received, a description of the premises, and the name of the person receiving it |
| Within 30 days of receiving the deposit | A receipt naming the bank, the bank's address, the account number, and the amount deposited |
| Within 10 days of the start of the tenancy, or receipt of the deposit, whichever is later | A signed written statement of condition listing existing damage, including common areas |
| Annually, on the anniversary of the tenancy | Interest paid to the tenant or credited toward rent, with a statement of the amount |
| Within 30 days of the end of the tenancy | The deposit and accrued interest returned, or a sworn itemized list of damages with written evidence of cost |
Every one of those is a separate obligation. Satisfying four of the five is not a defense.
Where the Money Has to Sit
A security deposit in Massachusetts is not your money. It is the tenant's money that you are holding.
It must be held in a separate, interest-bearing account in a bank located in Massachusetts, and it has to be protected from your creditors. It cannot go into your operating account, it cannot be applied against your own mortgage payment, and it cannot be commingled with rent income. If you sell the property, the deposit and all deposit records transfer to the new owner, and the new owner inherits the obligations, so this becomes a due diligence item on every multi-family purchase.
Then, within 30 days of receiving the deposit, you have to tell the tenant in writing where the money is. Name of bank, address of bank, account number, amount.
Interest: Small Dollars, Big Consequences
The interest owed on a security deposit is either 5 percent per year or the actual rate the bank paid, whichever is less. In a typical year that means the actual bank rate, and on a $2,700 deposit that can amount to very little money.
The dollar amount is not the point. The obligation is the point. Interest has to be paid or credited toward rent at the end of each year of the tenancy, and the tenant is entitled to a statement showing it. If a tenant leaves before the anniversary date, interest is still owed for the period held.
This is the requirement small landlords forget most often, because the amount feels too small to matter. In a dispute, it is the first thing a tenant's attorney checks.
The Statement of Condition
Within 10 days of the start of the tenancy or your receipt of the deposit, whichever comes later, you have to give the tenant a signed written statement of condition describing the property and listing any existing damage, including damage in common areas.
The tenant then has 15 days to review it, add to it, and return it to you. If they disagree with your version, that gets documented.
The statute does not attach a specific dollar penalty to skipping this step the way it does to a mishandled account. What it does is condition your right to hold a deposit on providing it, so a tenant can demand the deposit back, and the Attorney General's consumer protection regulations treat the failure as a chapter 93A violation when the landlord is in the business of renting residential property. In other words, it is not a formality.
This document is also your best friend at move-out. Without a statement of condition, a dispute over whether the scratched floor was there in 2024 becomes your word against theirs, and the burden is not on the tenant.
What You Can and Cannot Deduct
You can deduct for unpaid rent that was lawfully due, for an unpaid increase in real estate taxes the tenant is obligated to pay under a tax escalator clause, and for damage beyond reasonable wear and tear that occurred during the tenancy and for which the tenant is legally responsible.
You cannot deduct for reasonable wear and tear. Worn carpet in a unit occupied for six years is wear and tear. Faded paint is wear and tear. Nail holes from hanging pictures are generally wear and tear. A hole punched through a bedroom door is not.
If you keep any portion of the deposit, the itemized list has to be sworn to under the pains and penalties of perjury and delivered within 30 days of the end of the tenancy, along with written evidence of the actual or estimated cost of repair, such as receipts or estimates.
The practical standard I use with clients: if you would not be comfortable showing a judge the photo, the estimate, and the statement of condition side by side, do not take the deduction.
What Triple Damages Actually Means
This is where Massachusetts separates itself from most states, and it is worth being precise, because the two penalties are not the same thing.
First, forfeiture. Under section 15B(6), a landlord loses the right to retain any portion of the deposit for any reason if the landlord does any of the following:
- Fails to hold the deposit in a separate account as the statute requires
- Fails to furnish the itemized list of damages within 30 days after the tenancy ends
- Includes a lease provision that conflicts with the statute and tries to enforce it
- Fails to transfer the deposit to a successor owner
- Fails to return the deposit or the balance of it
Forfeiture means exactly what it sounds like. Even if the tenant genuinely damaged the unit, a landlord who tripped one of those wires can be required to hand the entire deposit back.
Second, treble damages. The statute reserves the harsher remedy for a narrower set of failures: not depositing the funds properly, not transferring the deposit on sale, and not returning the deposit or balance owed. In those cases the tenant is awarded three times the deposit or balance owed, plus interest at 5 percent from the date payment became due, together with court costs and reasonable attorney's fees.
The attorney's fees piece is what makes small cases worth bringing. A $2,700 deposit dispute is not usually worth a lawsuit on its own economics. A $2,700 deposit dispute with a fee-shifting statute behind it is a very different calculation, and tenant-side attorneys in Greater Boston know it well.
There is also a strategic dimension. If you end up in an eviction case for nonpayment, a security deposit violation is a standard counterclaim. A landlord who is owed three months of rent and has a defective deposit can find the math reversed on them in a hurry.
Why Some Quincy Landlords Do Not Take a Deposit At All
Once you understand the exposure, a common conclusion follows: the deposit is not worth the risk.
In my experience working with small owners on the South Shore, a meaningful share of them collect first month's rent and last month's rent and stop there. Last month's rent has its own requirements, including interest, but it carries less of the strict-compliance machinery than a security deposit does, and it gives you a real cushion against the most common problem, which is a tenant leaving without paying the final month.
That approach has a trade-off. You have no dedicated fund for damage, so your screening and your walk-through documentation have to carry more weight. It is a legitimate strategy, not a shortcut, and it is worth discussing with your attorney before you decide.
The point is that this should be a deliberate choice. Taking a deposit and half-administering it is the worst of the available options.
The Bottom Line
Massachusetts security deposit law is not complicated, but it is unforgiving. The steps are knowable, the deadlines are fixed, and the penalties are severe enough that a single missed receipt can cost more than a year of cash flow on a Quincy two-family.
If you are going to take a deposit, build a checklist and run it the same way every single time. Separate Massachusetts bank account, receipt at collection, bank details within 30 days, statement of condition within 10 days, interest every year, itemized list and return within 30 days of move-out. If you are not willing to run that process with discipline, the safer play is to not take a deposit in the first place.
And if you are buying a Quincy multi-family with tenants in place, add the deposit records to your due diligence list. Inheriting someone else's sloppy paperwork is a real and avoidable risk.