Deposit anxiety? How to protect yourself

The Housing Foundation has a history of cheating tenants out of their deposits. 

Here’s how you can stop it from happening to you.

tl;dr:

1. Take detailed photos when you move in and send them to the Housing Foundation
2. Do the same when you move out
3. Know that you can lodge a case in the housing court if your deposit is kept unfairly

As the semester ends it’s time for most of the Housing Foundation’s 1500+ tenants to pack up and move out. Meanwhile, the Housing Foundation is holding 12 million kroner of students’ money in the form of deposits. Reading the news articles and the Foundation’s own web site (try searching it for ‘deposit consequences’), we can only wonder how much of that sum will be returned. According to the Housing Foundation:

The deposit will be used to cover any repairs due to damage caused by you (in your room or in the common areas), replacement of keys/locks, post-departure cleaning or other things that might have to be fixed at your expense. In other words: if the room is left in an unsatisfactory condition at the end of the semester, the deposit (or part of it) will not be returned to you![1]

What ‘unsatisfactory’ means is anyone’s guess, but one thing is certain: any decision by the Housing Foundation to keep your deposit is not final. If you think the Housing Foundation has unfairly kept your deposit, you can lodge a case against them in the housing court. Find out how to do it here.

To support your claim you'll need evidence though, so take photos when you move in and when you leave. Send your moving-in photos to the Housing Foundation using the method they describe or just email them. If you want to be extra careful, place the front page of a recent newspaper in your moving-out photos so you can prove that they are not old.

Do you have a story about the Housing Foundation unfairly keeping your deposit? Let us know here.

[1] http://housingfoundation.ku.dk/payment-information/deposit/