Question posted in the Property Law category relating to KwaZulu-Natal
I am the landlord and want to know:If a potential tenant pays me holding deposit and decides not to move in by the agreed date, is he entitled to get his deposit back?
Our intial agreement that is was HIM alone that will occupying the premisis and that his mum and partner would SOMETIMES visit.I have been securing the premises for him since the end of May 2022 and never advertised it further, he paid me the holding deposit on the 2022/06/06 and on the 2022/06/11 indicated to me that he will no longer be moving in due to the fact that his mum does not want to live in the area(bearing in mind his mum was never apart of our initial agreement to live with him permenantly) I have after securing the place for him decided to add on built in cuboards etc after knowing he will only occupy the premsis as of the 2022/07/01 the cuboards - of which he did not need as he stated he had kitchen furniutre but i did it out of good will, Now he states that the cubaords was only completed on the 2022/06/11 so that gives me ample time to advertise and secure a new tenant of which i am not in agreement with as this now puts me under enormous pressure with the limited time frame left for this month, He has now put me in a financial loss for 1 month rental and therefore I donot think he should be refunded his deposit