Tenant wants to use on security deposit to pay a new SD??

[Julian Colvard]

A tenant wants to get their security deposit back from another landlord so they can pay the SD on the property I’m managing.

Have you had experience with this in the past, and how have you handled it?

[Long Dang]

Greg's onto something here. Definitely raises some concerns if tenant is waiting for the current deposit to pay the new one. This signals that they might be financially constrained in some capacity. I'd be careful. 

Things to consider:

1) Are you collecting first months, last months, and the security deposit? The totality of all this could be too expensive for some tenants. In Boston, MA  a lot of the recent college grads deal with this and need a guarantor (parents, some other family) to sign off on the lease. 

2) It's very rare that the tenant will receive their security deposit BEFORE moving into their new place because there are a lot of steps in the process of getting security deposits from the bank > tenant. Not sure what the other landlord's process looks like but it will probably take a week or more. This it's another uncontrollable variable for you. 

3)You can also dive deeper into the tenant's circumstance: do they simply not have enough extra cash to pay for the deposit right now? Could they pay the whole thing in a few weeks? How long have they been renting for? If they've rented for 1+ years and don't have the cashflow to pay a deposit up front that's a bit concerning.