The infinite wait is over. If you are a tenant and have handed over the keys to your apartment, the owner has exactly one month to return the deposit. If you exceed that deadline, the law takes your side and forces the landlord to dig deep into his pocket to pay you interest for each day of delay.
This is an automatic right that protects your money and that many Spaniards are unaware of when ending a rental contract. And the regulations are clear and appear in Article 36.4 of the Urban Leases Law (LAU).
The legal text establishes that the balance of the deposit that must be returned will accrue legal interest after one month from the delivery of the keys. In this year alone (2026), that interest stands at 3.25%, a figure that has remained stable since 2023 and that serves as an economic ‘punishment’ for those owners who retain the deposit without any clear justification.
30 days to return the deposit
This period of one month is not a whim, but rather the ‘grace period’ that the owner has to verify that the apartment is in perfect condition and that there are no outstanding electricity or water bills.
However, once those 30 calendar days have passed, the legal ‘taximeter’ is activated automatically. It is not necessary to have specifically signed it in your contract, but it is a right by law that seeks to speed up the procedures and prevent the tenant from unjustifiably losing liquidity.
For the owners, this period must be sacred. If after that month the money has not been returned nor have invoices or estimates been presented to justify possible damages, the tenant has the right to judicially claim not only his full deposit, but also the accumulated late payment interest.
How to claim your interests?
In addition to the control over the deposit, it is worth remembering that, according to Article 20 of the LAU, all expenses of real estate management and formalization of the contract must always be assumed by the lessor. This, added to the penalty for delaying the deposit, paints a scenario where the tenant has more legal weapons than ever to defend their savings.
If you find yourself in the situation where your former landlord ‘plays the Swedish’, the first step is to send a burofax claiming the refund and explicitly mentioning the accrual of 3.25% legal interest.
This official communication is usually enough for the owner to react, since he knows that, if it goes to trial, he would lose and would end up paying procedural costs and a higher amount for the delay.