Florida Property Manager Changed: Track Your Deposit | KortePA

A new manager should inherit the deposit record—not make the tenant start over

When a Florida apartment complex changes managers, tenants often receive a short email telling them where to pay next month's rent. The email may say nothing about the security deposit paid years earlier. That silence does not mean the deposit disappeared.

Florida Statutes section 83.49(7) expressly covers a “change in the designated rental agent.” The former owner or agent must transfer security deposits and advance rents held for tenants, any earned interest, and an accurate accounting showing the amount credited to each tenant. The same rule applies when title to the rental property is sold or transferred.

The tenant should not be asked to reconstruct the entire account only after moving out. Confirming the transfer while the tenancy is active can expose a missing ledger, wrong balance, omitted pet deposit, or unexplained interest issue when the records are easier to locate.

Send one clear written request to the current manager

Ask the current manager to confirm:

1. The total security deposit and each separate component, including any pet or additional deposit.
2. The amount of advance rent, if any.
3. The transfer date and the name of the prior owner or agent that transferred the account.
4. The deposit's current holding method and depository, if the statutory disclosure requirement applies.
5. Whether the account earns interest and how much interest has been credited.
6. The legal name and address of the current owner or authorized agent for notices.

Keep the request factual. Attach a copy—not the only original—of the lease, deposit receipt, canceled check, or opening ledger. Ask the manager to correct any discrepancy in writing. A telephone assurance is helpful context, but written confirmation is much better evidence.

Keep the former manager in the documentary chain

The former manager may say that every account was transferred at the end of the management contract. Preserve that communication and ask for the tenant ledger, transfer schedule, date, recipient, and written receipt. Section 83.49(7) links the transferor's release from the duty to hold the money to transfer of the funds and records and transmittal of a written receipt.

The statute also says the transfer does not excuse violations committed while the former owner or agent possessed the deposit. A management change does not erase an earlier act of commingling the deposit with operating funds or using protected money before it became due.

The point is not to accuse every former manager of misconduct. It is to prevent a later circle in which each company directs the tenant to someone else while no one produces a ledger or transfer record.

Understand the one-month-rent presumption

Section 83.49(7) creates a rebuttable presumption that the new owner or agent received the security deposit, but only up to one month's rent. “Rebuttable” means the presumption can be overcome with competent contrary evidence.

The cap matters when the tenant paid more than one month's rent as security or paid separate deposits. It does not mean the excess is forfeited. It means the tenant should preserve proof of the full amount and may need transfer records to determine which owner or manager has responsibility for the disputed balance.

Useful proof includes the signed lease and renewals, deposit receipts, canceled checks, bank statements, payment-platform history, move-in ledger, pet agreement, annual interest credits, emails, texts, rent statements, and any later document acknowledging the account balance.

Protect the correct mailing address before move-out

Send the current owner and manager the tenant's correct forwarding address in writing and keep delivery proof. Preserve evidence that the former manager also knew it. Under section 83.49(3)(a), a certified-mail claim notice goes to the tenant's last known mailing address unless the parties validly elected electronic delivery under section 83.505.

The tenant-side reading developed throughout this series treats “last known mailing address” as a knowledge standard. The correct address actually known to the landlord should control whether the knowledge came from a letter, email, text, payment record, pleading, prior mailing, management file, or admission. A management transition should not erase known address information.

For the full analysis, see What “Last Known Mailing Address” Means Under Florida Security-Deposit Law.

Do not let the transition obscure the move-out deadlines

When the rental agreement terminates, the landlord generally has 15 days to return the deposit if no claim will be made or 30 days to provide the required claim notice. Section 83.49(7) does not state that a sale or management change restarts those deadlines.

If the transition happens near move-out, preserve the deed or sale announcement, management-change notice, termination date, key return, possession records, claim notice, envelope, tracking, email delivery record, objection, and every partial payment. Write to both the former and current owner or agent if responsibility is unclear.

The complete legal treatment appears in KortePA's Week 10 resource, Who Owes the Security Deposit When a Florida Rental Property Is Sold?