Deposit return: what your landlord owes you

When a Czech lease ends, your landlord must return the deposit with interest from the day you paid it, and may keep only what you owe from the lease: unpaid rent, a shortfall from a settlement you've received, or the cost of damage beyond normal wear. The law sets no number of days to wait: the deposit is due when the lease ends.¹ If it doesn't come, a written demand usually does it, and after that a court's payment order. The tool works out what your landlord owes to the day, from when they're late, and fills in the demand in Czech.

How to use the tool

1. Your deposit. The amount and the day you paid it, as your bank statement or a signed receipt shows.
2. The end of the lease. The last day of the lease, the day you gave back the keys, and any days your lease gives your landlord to return the deposit.
3. What has come back. If part of the deposit came back, the amount and the day.
4. What your landlord keeps. Add each amount on its own line and say what it's for. Each line shows whether a landlord may usually keep it, must prove it first, or can't keep it at all. Tell the tool whether you both signed a handover record and whether it notes any damage. It's the main evidence of the flat's state.
5. Which rate to claim. Pick a reading, and type a rate where it asks for one.

The answer shows what your landlord owes today, split into the deposit, its interest and default interest, with the day they became late. The dates and amounts ride in the page's address, so you can keep the check. The letter's names, addresses and account never do.

What may a landlord keep from the deposit?

Only what you owe from the lease. The landlord sets it off against the deposit when the lease ends, and must return the rest.¹ In practice that means:

• Unpaid rent, and rent for each day after the lease ended until your landlord had the keys back.²
• A shortfall from a service-charge settlement you've received. Check the settlement first: you can object to it.
• Damage beyond normal wear, at what repairing it costs. Wear from normal use isn't yours to pay for.³ If you made changes without consent, undoing them can be yours too.

A set-off works only for a claim that is certain, and one your landlord can't yet put a figure on isn't. A claim genuinely disputed in basis or amount usually can't be set off; object to it in writing.⁴ Painting and cleaning are routine upkeep you do and pay for while you live there.⁵ At handover, normal wear is allowed, and your landlord must prove anything beyond it. A handover record you both signed is the main evidence of the flat's state, for either side.

Some landlords hold part of the deposit until the next service-charge settlement. Until the settlement exists, the shortfall is uncertain, and we found no court ruling on a lease clause that allows it. The tool counts it as not kept: pay any shortfall once the settlement comes.

How much interest is owed on a deposit?

The law gives you interest from the day you paid, “at least at the statutory rate”, and no regulation says what that rate is.¹ Courts and lawyers read it in different ways, and the tool lets you pick:

• The banks' usual rate when you signed. The Civil Code's rule for interest that isn't otherwise set is the rate banks usually charge for loans, as it stood when the agreement was made.⁶ The Municipal Court in Prague, deciding an appeal, used the Czech National Bank's figures for loans to households in the month the lease was signed.⁷ The field starts empty: open the ČNB's table of new consumer loans to households fixed for over a year and up to five, the series the court's figure comes from, find the month you signed and type its rate.
• The default-interest rate when you paid. The same court read “at least at the statutory rate” as a floor: the rate of default interest for a default starting on the day the deposit was paid.⁷ The tool takes the ČNB's repo rate for that half-year and adds the margin the regulation sets.⁸
• The rate in your lease. A clause that rules out interest has no effect, because a lease can't take away a tenant's rights.⁹ A lower rate is disregarded if it's below the statutory rate; what that rate is remains disputed.
• A rate you type, for one you've been advised to claim, or 0 to claim the deposit alone.

We found no Supreme Court ruling on the rate. The Supreme Court turned down an appeal that raised it without deciding the question, because each claim in the case was too small to be appealed to it,¹⁰ and the Constitutional Court rejected a complaint about it for being late.¹¹ Until a higher court decides, the reading you claim is your choice, and in a dispute a court decides. The usual rate is the one the Prague court used, and the default-interest rate is the least it said a tenant is owed.

Interest runs on the whole deposit until the lease ends, then only on what's still owed after lawful deductions, because a set-off counts from when both claims could be set off.¹² Once the deposit is late, default interest runs on top, from the day after it fell due, at the rate for the half-year in which the default began.¹³ The Prague court awarded both together.⁷ If your landlord pays part back, the payment covers the default interest and the interest first, and only the rest comes off the deposit.¹⁴

When and how should you send the demand?

As soon as the deposit is late. The tool fills in a demand (výzva k vrácení jistoty a úroků) from your answers, in Czech, with a translation in your language to check it against. Add the names, the addresses and your account, print it, sign it and send it.

• Send it so you can prove it arrived: by registered post with a return slip, or to your landlord's data box (datová schránka). Keep the receipt.
• Send it in time. A court can refuse you your costs if you didn't send a demand to their address for service, or the last one you know, at least seven days before going to court.¹⁵ The letter gives your landlord until the day a posted letter is presumed delivered, three working days after you send it, plus seven days, moved off a weekend or holiday.¹⁶
• Ask for the papers. For every amount your landlord keeps, ask for the invoice, the settlement or the photos. An amount they can't show can't be kept.

What comes after the demand?

If nothing comes by the deadline, ask the district court for a payment order (platební rozkaz). It's a court's order to pay, issued on the papers when the claim is clear. The landlord can object, and then the court hears the case. Our guide to getting your deposit back has the court fees and the steps, and problems with your landlord goes through the other routes.

You don't have to do it alone. Tenants' associations and legal clinics can check your case for free: see free legal help. Bring the lease, the handover record, your bank statements and your landlord's replies.

Mistakes people make

• Moving out without a handover record. Without one, a claim about the flat's state is your word against your landlord's.
• Accepting a deduction without papers. Ask what each amount is for and see the invoice before you agree.
• Forgetting the interest. It's yours by law. Even at a modest rate, over a few years it adds up.
• Waiting too long. A claim for the deposit runs out three years after it fell due.¹⁷ Send the demand while the dates are fresh.
• Paying a shortfall before the settlement. Pay it once the settlement comes, and only after you've checked it.

Before you move out, end of lease dates your notice and the deposit, the handover record writes down the flat's state on the day, and the service-charge check tests the settlement when it comes.

Sources

1. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2254(2). ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2292 and §2295. ↩

3. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2293. ↩

4. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §1987(2); Supreme Court (grand chamber), 31 Cdo 684/2020. ↩

5. Government Regulation 308/2015 Coll. §2; Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2257(2). ↩

6. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §1802. ↩

7. Municipal Court in Prague, 16 Co 107/2022, judgment. ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. Government Regulation 351/2013 Coll. §2. ↩

9. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2235. ↩

10. Civil Procedure Code (99/1963 Coll.) §238(1)(c). ↩

11. Supreme Court, 26 Cdo 2891/2022; Constitutional Court, II. ÚS 282/23. ↩

12. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §1982(2). ↩

13. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §1970; Government Regulation 351/2013 Coll. §2. ↩

14. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §1932(1). ↩

15. Civil Procedure Code (99/1963 Coll.) §142a(1). ↩

16. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §573 and §607. ↩

17. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §619 and §629(1). ↩