Q: in Florida, can a landlord use an evicted tenant's security deposit for unpaid rent?
no written lease exists. month-to-month for several months now. the only existing legal documentation pertaining to my security deposit is my receipt proving I paid it.
A: The short answer is yes—because there is no written agreement to prove what the security deposit was for.
A: Technically no if you have proof that it was to be a security deposit. That does not mean it doesn't happen and your remedy would be to go to small claims court and convince the judge it was improperly credited to rent. You might get your security deposit back but you could end up with a judgment for unpaid rent that it was applied towards, so the landlord would get to keep it anyway.
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