How to Get Your Security Deposit Back in 2026: Deadlines, Deductions, and Your State-by-State Rights

Your Deposit Is Your Money — Here Is Why That Changes Everything

Start with one fact, because everything else grows from it: a security deposit is your money. The landlord only holds it. It is not rent, and it is not a fee the landlord earns. It is a safety net against unpaid rent or damage you cause, and by default it comes back to you when you leave. In several states the law is blunt about this — the landlord must keep it in a separate trust account and may not spend it as if it were their own.[22, 5]

This matters because a deposit is very different from money you never get back. Landlords sometimes collect a non-refundable "pet fee," "move-in fee," or "cleaning fee," or ask for "last month’s rent" on top of a deposit. A true deposit must be returned minus lawful deductions; a fee usually is not returned at all. Some states limit or even ban non-refundable fees, or require that anything called a deposit actually be refundable. Before you sign, ask which of your dollars are a refundable deposit and which are a fee you will never see again — and get the answer in writing.[5, 10, 11]

Because the deposit is yours, the law wraps it in rules: how much a landlord can take, where the money must be kept, how fast it must come back, and what can lawfully be subtracted. Almost all of those rules are state and local law — there is no single federal security-deposit statute — so the details change at the state line. This guide walks the entire return journey, from the day you move in to the check in your hand, and ties each rule to the statute behind it. If you are still choosing a place and paying the deposit up front, our companion guide on renting your first apartment covers that side; this one is about getting the money back.[5, 6, 3, 4]

How Much Can a Landlord Legally Charge?

The size of a deposit is not the same everywhere. Many large states set no legal cap at all — Texas, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Colorado, Virginia, and Washington leave the amount to the market, though every other rule (return deadline, itemized deductions, penalties) still applies. In those states a landlord can ask for a large deposit, so the number to watch is what you can afford, not what the law forbids.[24, 26]

Other states do cap it, and California is the headline change. Since Assembly Bill 12 took effect on July 1, 2024, the cap is one month’s rent — furnished or unfurnished. The old "two months unfurnished, three months furnished" rule is gone; a 2026 article that still quotes it is wrong. Two nuances survive: a small landlord (a natural person, or an LLC owned entirely by natural persons, who owns no more than two residential properties totaling no more than four units) may charge up to two months, and a servicemember is always capped at one month regardless of the owner.[18, 19, 21]

Elsewhere the caps vary but tend to sit low. New York limits a deposit to one month’s rent under the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act. Massachusetts is one month. Arizona is one and a half months, and Michigan is one and a half months. Pennsylvania allows two months in the first year but only one month from the second year on. When a state has a cap, anything charged above it is unlawful, and you can usually demand the excess back right away — you do not have to wait until you move out.[23, 32, 40, 45]

Where Your Deposit Lives — Separate Accounts and Interest

In several states a landlord cannot simply drop your deposit into a personal checking account. The law requires it be held separately, in trust, and not mixed with the landlord’s own money. New York’s General Obligations Law §7-103 makes the deposit trust money that "shall not be mingled with the personal moneys" of the landlord. North Carolina requires a trust account or a bond. Georgia requires an escrow account when the landlord owns more than ten units or uses an agent. Pennsylvania requires escrow once the deposit passes one hundred dollars. Some of these states also require the landlord to tell you the name of the bank.[22, 37, 47, 46]

A smaller group of states goes further and makes the landlord pay you interest on the money — but do not assume every deposit earns it, because the rules turn on building size, how long the deposit is held, or the amount. Massachusetts pays 5% a year, or the bank’s rate, paid annually and again at the end of the tenancy. Maryland pays the greater of the one-year U.S. Treasury yield or 1.5% a year, as simple interest. Illinois requires interest only from landlords of 25 or more units holding a deposit longer than six months. The City of Chicago sets a rate every year under its own ordinance — for 2026 it is 0.01%.[32, 43, 28, 30, 29, 33]

Why spend a paragraph on where the money sits? Because it proves the point of this whole guide. A landlord who mixes your deposit into their own account, or skips the interest a state requires, is already breaking the law before the move-out fight even begins. That is leverage. If you ever end up in a dispute, a commingling or missing-interest violation strengthens your hand and, in some states, adds its own penalty on top of whatever you are owed.[22, 31]

The Deposit Fight Is Won on Move-In Day

The single best thing you can do to get your deposit back costs nothing and happens before you unpack a single box: document the condition of the unit the day you move in. Walk every room with your phone. Take dated photos and video of floors, walls, counters, appliances, windows, and every pre-existing scratch, stain, chip, or worn spot. Open cabinets. Film the carpet. Timestamped move-in evidence is the proof that a scuff was already there — and it is what wins the argument months later when a landlord tries to bill you for it.[5]

Some states do not leave this to good habits — they require a written move-in checklist, and the penalty for skipping it can fall on the landlord. In Washington, a landlord may not collect a deposit at all without a written, signed checklist describing the unit’s condition; skip it and the landlord forfeits the deposit. Michigan requires an inventory checklist at the start and end of the lease. Georgia requires a move-in list of existing defects. Arizona requires the landlord to give an itemized list of existing damage on request. Virginia requires a written condition report within five days of move-in.[34, 44, 47, 40]

Whatever your state requires, do three things and keep them together. Get both signatures on the checklist, so the landlord cannot later deny it. Save your dated photos and video in a place you will still have after you move — a cloud folder, not just the phone. And keep a full copy of the signed lease. This little bundle — lease, signed checklist, timestamped photos — is the difference between "prove it" and "here is the proof" when a vague damage charge shows up at the end.[41, 5]

Normal Wear and Tear vs. Damage — the Line That Decides Most Fights

The most common deposit dispute in the country comes down to four words: "normal wear and tear." A landlord may charge you for damage you caused. A landlord may not charge you for the ordinary aging that comes from simply living in a place. The whole fight is about which side of that line a given mark falls on, so it pays to know where courts and statutes draw it.[8, 24]

Here is the line in plain terms. Normal wear is faded paint, lightly worn carpet in walking paths, small nail holes from hanging pictures, minor scuffs on a wall, and loose grout — the marks of ordinary use. Damage is large holes, pet urine soaked into the carpet, cigarette burns, broken tiles or fixtures, missing appliances, and filth far beyond ordinary dirt. HUD frames it the same way: wear is what you expect from normal use, while damage comes from negligence, carelessness, accident, or abuse. Texas law flatly forbids keeping any part of a deposit for "normal wear and tear," and Georgia bars deductions for wear that happened "as a result of the use for which the premises were intended," as long as there was no negligence.[8, 24, 47, 34]

One more rule protects you even when there is real damage: depreciation. A landlord usually cannot charge you the full price of a brand-new item to replace something that was already old and worn. Carpet and paint have a "useful life" — often around five to ten years — and the value drops each year. If a carpet with a ten-year life is stained beyond repair in year eight, you owe roughly the two years of value left, not the cost of a whole new carpet. HUD’s own guidance builds deductions around an item’s age and useful life, and courts expect landlords to do the same. When a bill quotes full replacement for an old carpet, that is your opening to push back.[8]

What a Landlord Can and Cannot Take Out

A landlord may lawfully subtract a short list of things from your deposit. The main ones are unpaid rent, the cost of repairing damage beyond normal wear, cleaning to return the unit to move-in condition, and sometimes unpaid utilities the lease makes your responsibility. That is roughly the universe of legitimate deductions. Everything a landlord takes should fit inside it, and should be spelled out item by item.[24, 26]

Just as important is the list of what a landlord cannot take. Not normal wear and tear. Not damage that was already there when you arrived — which is exactly why your move-in photos matter. Not ordinary cleaning in the states that bar charging for it on a normal tenancy. Not routine repainting after an average-length stay. And not upgrades the landlord wanted anyway, dressed up as "repairs." If a deduction is really the landlord improving the property on your dime, it does not belong on your bill.[47, 35]

The rule that ties it together is itemization. Most states require the landlord to send a written, itemized statement of every deduction, and a growing number now demand proof behind the numbers. Washington’s 2023 update requires documentation — receipts or estimates — for deductions. California’s AB 2801 now requires the itemized statement to include before-and-after photographs and the cost of each item. A statement that just says "damages: $600" with no breakdown is a red flag, and in many states a failure to itemize on time forfeits the deductions entirely, which we turn to next.[35, 20]

The Move-Out Playbook: Hand Back the Keys the Right Way

On the way out, mirror what you did on the way in. Clean the unit back to move-in condition — empty, swept, wiped down, trash gone. Then take dated move-out photos and video of the same rooms, angles, and details you captured on move-in day. Two matching sets, months apart, tell a clean before-and-after story that is very hard for a landlord to argue with. If you patched nail holes or touched up paint, photograph that too.[5]

Ask for a walkthrough before you leave. California gives tenants a statutory right to request an "initial inspection" in the two weeks before move-out, where the landlord must hand you an itemized list of what they would deduct — so you get the chance to fix it yourself and avoid the charge. Even in states that do not require it, asking for a pre-move-out walkthrough with the landlord present forces problems into the open while you can still act on them, instead of discovering them on a bill weeks later.[18]

Two last steps decide whether the check ever reaches you. Return the keys on time, because in many states the return clock does not even start until you have truly given up the unit. And — this is the one tenants forget — give the landlord a forwarding address in writing. In several states the deadline to return your deposit does not begin until the landlord has your new address. No address on file can mean no check on the way, and it hands the landlord an easy excuse. Send it in a way you can prove, keep a copy, and you have started the single most important countdown in this whole guide.[13, 5]

The Return Clock: the Deadline That Is Your Biggest Weapon

Every state puts a hard deadline on the landlord. After you move out, they have a set number of days to either return your full deposit or send you an itemized statement of what they are keeping and why. The window runs from about 14 days at the short end to 60 days at the long end. Miss nothing else in this guide and you still have real power, because a landlord who blows this deadline is on the wrong side of the law — and you can hold them to it.[23, 18]

Here are the deadlines in the biggest states, so you can find yours. New York is 14 days. California is 21 days. A large group runs 30 days: Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, New Jersey, Michigan, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Colorado. Maryland and Virginia are 45 days. Florida gives 15 days if the landlord makes no claim, or 30 days to mail a notice of any claim, after which you get 15 days to object. Arizona is 14 business days. North Carolina is 30 days, stretched to 60 if the final amount cannot yet be determined. One warning worth repeating: Washington moved from 21 to 30 days in its 2023 update, so older guides get it wrong.[24, 26, 35, 37]

Now the part that turns the deadline into a weapon: in many states, a landlord who blows it forfeits the right to keep anything at all — even for genuine damage. New York, Washington, Colorado, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, and Illinois all attach a version of this forfeiture. Texas goes at it from another angle: under Property Code §92.109, missing the 30-day deadline creates a rebuttable presumption that the landlord acted in bad faith, which opens the door to penalties. So the deadline is not a soft target. Mark it on your calendar the day you hand over the keys and your forwarding address, and count from there.[24, 42, 43, 27]

When the Landlord Keeps Too Much: the Demand Letter

Say the deadline passed with no word, or the itemized statement kept far more than seems fair. Your next move is not court — it is a written demand letter. It is cheap, it is fast, and it resolves a large share of deposit disputes without a judge, because it shows the landlord you know the rules and are ready to use them.[5]

Keep the letter short and factual. State your old unit address and move-out date. State the amount you are owed and why the deductions are improper. Name the statute and the deadline the landlord missed or violated — a specific citation lands harder than a complaint. Give a firm date to pay, usually ten to fourteen days. And say plainly that if the money is not returned, you will file in small claims court and ask for the statutory penalty and any attorney fees the law allows. Attach copies — not originals — of your lease, signed checklist, and photos.[5, 39]

Send it in a way you can prove. Certified mail with a return receipt, or any method that creates a tracking record, so the landlord cannot claim it never arrived — and keep a copy of the letter itself. Many landlords who ignored a phone call will write a check within days of a letter that cites the exact statute and spells out the doubling or tripling they now risk. If it works, you saved a trip to court. If it does not, you have just built the first exhibit for the judge.[39]

The Penalty Math: Why Withholding in Bad Faith Backfires

The reason a demand letter carries weight is the penalty math. When a landlord keeps a deposit in bad faith — or just blows the deadline in a state that treats that as bad faith — the law does not simply order the money returned. It multiplies it. In a large group of states the landlord can be made to pay two or three times the amount wrongfully withheld, plus your court costs and, often, your attorney fees.[32, 24]

Some states triple it. Massachusetts can award three times the deposit, plus 5% interest, court costs, and attorney fees, for a bad-faith violation. Colorado, Maryland, and Texas also reach treble damages. Texas is especially pointed: under §92.109, a landlord who keeps a deposit in bad faith is liable for $100 plus three times the wrongfully withheld amount plus attorney fees, and missing the 30-day deadline is presumed bad faith. Other states double it — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Ohio, Illinois, Washington, and New York each attach a version of double damages or punitive damages for willful violations.[32, 42, 43, 23]

Put a number on it and the leverage is obvious. Suppose a landlord wrongly keeps $1,500. In a double-damages state that can become $3,000; in a treble state, $4,500 — before your court costs and legal fees are added on top. A landlord who does that arithmetic usually decides that returning your $1,500 beats gambling on a judgment several times larger. That is the whole point: the deposit rules are built so that playing fair is cheaper than cheating. Your job is to know the multiplier in your state and say so, out loud, in your demand letter.[24, 32]

Taking It to Small Claims Court

If the demand letter does not work, small claims court is the deposit’s natural home. These courts were built for exactly this kind of case: a modest amount of money, an ordinary person on each side, no lawyer required, and a filing fee that is usually small. A wrongly withheld deposit is one of the most common small claims cases in the country, and the process is designed for someone doing it for the first time.[5]

Win it by walking in with the paper trail this guide has had you build all along. Bring the lease, the signed move-in checklist, both sets of dated photos, the landlord’s itemized statement (or proof that none arrived), and your demand letter with its mailing receipt. Bring a copy of the statute and point to the deadline the landlord missed. And explicitly ask the judge for the statutory penalty — the double or triple damages — and any attorney fees the law allows, not just the bare deposit. Judges award what you request, so request all of it.[39, 32]

The mechanics of the courthouse itself — how to file, how to serve the landlord, what a hearing looks like, and the separate work of actually collecting once you win — are a topic of their own. Our full walkthrough lives in the guide to small claims court, which picks up exactly where this section leaves off. Read it before your filing date so nothing at the courthouse is a surprise.

Roommates, Breaking a Lease, and Military Moves

A shared apartment complicates the deposit. Usually there is one deposit under several names, and the lease makes each roommate "jointly and severally" responsible — meaning the landlord can look to any one of you for the whole thing. At move-out the landlord typically cuts one check to all tenants together, and it is on the roommates to divide it fairly. Settle that split with a simple written agreement at the start, so nobody argues later about who caused which deduction. The broader roommate rules are covered in our first apartment guide.[5]

Leaving early is its own trap. An early-termination fee in the lease is separate from your deposit; paying the fee does not forfeit your right to the deposit back, and keeping the deposit does not excuse an unpaid fee. If you sublet, remember your deposit is still with your landlord under your name — a subtenant’s deposit to you is a different arrangement, and their damage can flow back to your deposit if the lease makes you responsible. Read who owes whom before you hand any money over.[5]

Service members have a federal shield. Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, 50 U.S.C. §3955, a member on qualifying military orders — a permanent change of station, or a deployment of 90 days or more — can terminate a residential lease early. Any rent paid in advance for the period after termination must be refunded within 30 days, and the landlord may not impose an early-termination penalty. The deposit itself still comes back under the lease and state law, and the landlord can still deduct for actual damage or prorated rent, but the punitive "you broke the lease" charges are off the table.[1, 2]

Deposit Alternatives and "Security Deposit Insurance": Read the Fine Print

A newer option is spreading fast, and it needs a clear eye. Instead of handing over a lump-sum deposit, some tenants are offered a "deposit alternative," "security deposit insurance," or a surety bond: you pay a small monthly fee and skip the big upfront check. On a tight move-in budget it sounds like a gift, and sometimes it genuinely helps with cash flow. But it is a different product with different math, and the marketing rarely leads with the catch.[51]

The catch is twofold. First, the monthly fee is non-refundable — unlike a deposit, you never get any of it back, so over a long tenancy it can quietly cost more than the deposit it replaced. Second, it does not protect you from damage charges. If the landlord claims damage, the bond company usually pays the landlord and then comes after you to recover it. The National Consumer Law Center’s report on these products warns that they can raise tenants’ costs and weaken their protections, so treat the pitch as a financial decision, not a favor.[51]

Regulation is catching up in 2026. New York bills would require landlords to offer an alternative rather than force it, Maine’s law permits surety bonds but bars a landlord from requiring one, and a handful of cities have passed "renter’s choice" ordinances giving tenants the option. The common thread is choice: you should be able to pick a traditional, refundable deposit if you prefer it. Run the numbers over the length of your likely stay. A deposit you get back at the end often beats a fee you never see again.[50, 48, 49]

Deposits in Subsidized and HUD-Assisted Housing

If you live in HUD-assisted or public housing, federal rules layer on top of your state’s. HUD’s Handbook 4350.3 governs how an owner of an assisted property may handle a deposit at move-out: the owner must give you an itemized list of any charges and a notice of your right to meet and dispute them, and deductions are meant to track an item’s age and useful life rather than charge full replacement. In practice this gives HUD-housing tenants the same wear-and-tear and itemization protections discussed above, backed by a federal handbook.[8, 9]

HUD also points you to the local specifics. Its tenant-rights pages link to each state’s rules and to the housing authority or agency that handles complaints, and USA.gov maintains a plain-language directory of state tenant-rights handbooks and how to file a complaint about a landlord. If you are in subsidized housing, ask your housing authority two questions early: what the deposit rules are for your program, and what the grievance process is if a charge seems wrong. Knowing the process before you need it is half the battle.[6, 7, 12]

Common Landlord Tactics — and How to Counter Each One

Most withheld deposits come down to a handful of predictable moves. A flat "professional cleaning" fee charged no matter how spotless you left the place. A vague line that just says "damages" with no breakdown and no photos. Silence past the deadline, betting you will forget or move on. No itemized statement at all. And ordinary wear and tear rebranded as damage — a normal-life carpet or a wall that needed repainting anyway. None of these is clever once you can name it.[24, 47]

Each tactic has a counter. For the blanket cleaning fee, point to your dated move-out photos and, in states that bar charging for cleaning when you left the unit as clean as you found it, demand the receipt showing what was actually done. For vague "damages," demand the itemized statement the law requires — and in California, the before-and-after photos AB 2801 now mandates. For a missed deadline, do not argue over the individual charges at all; cite the forfeiture rule and ask for the full deposit back plus the penalty. The pattern is always the same: make the landlord meet the standard the statute already sets.[20, 35]

And know that this is not just a small-time problem. Federal regulators have gone after big corporate landlords over exactly these practices. In 2024 the FTC took a $48 million action against Invitation Homes for, among other things, improperly withholding security deposits and charging junk fees; in 2025 Greystar agreed to a $23 million settlement over deceptive fee practices. Then, on March 13, 2026, the FTC opened a rulemaking that explicitly asks about security-deposit practices that harm renters. If a large landlord is stiffing you, you can file a complaint that feeds this active federal scrutiny — you are not the only one watching.[13, 14, 15, 16, 17]

State-by-State Quick Reference for the Biggest States

Use this as a starting map, then confirm your own state’s current statute before you act — the citations in the reference list link straight to the law. California: one month cap (small landlords two), 21-day return, and since 2025 the itemized statement must include before-and-after photos (AB 2801). New York: one month cap, deposit held in trust, 14-day return, and forfeiture plus up to double punitive damages for a willful violation. Texas: no cap, 30-day return, and $100 plus treble damages plus attorney fees for bad faith, with a missed deadline presumed to be bad faith. Florida: no cap, 15 days to return with no claim or 30 days to notice a claim, then 15 days for you to object.[20, 23, 24, 26, 25]

Illinois: no state cap, deposit interest only from 25-plus-unit landlords holding it over six months, 30 days to itemize and 45 to return in larger buildings, with double damages plus fees for bad faith; Chicago’s own ordinance sets a 2026 interest rate of 0.01%. Washington: no cap, but no deposit at all without a signed move-in checklist, 30-day return (raised from 21 in 2023), documentation required for deductions, and up to double damages. Massachusetts: one month cap, held in a separate account with 5% interest, 30-day return, and treble damages plus 5% interest and fees for a violation. Ohio: no cap, 30-day return, and the withheld amount plus an equal sum plus fees when a landlord wrongfully keeps it.[28, 34, 32, 36]

Georgia: no cap, escrow required for larger owners, a move-in and move-out inspection list, 30-day return, and treble damages plus fees for bad-faith retention. North Carolina: no cap, deposit held in a trust account or bonded, and 30 days to account (60 if the amount is not yet known). New Jersey: cap of one and a half months, interest paid or credited yearly, 30-day return, and double damages plus fees. Michigan: one-and-a-half-month cap, 30-day itemized notice, and double damages for a bad-faith retention. Arizona: one-and-a-half-month cap, 14 business days to return, and double damages for wrongful withholding.[47, 37, 40, 44, 38]

Pennsylvania: two months in year one and one month after, escrow once the deposit tops $100, interest to the tenant from year three, 30-day return, and double damages on the amount above actual damages. Virginia: no cap, a written move-in condition report, 45-day return, and forfeiture of withholding for a missed deadline. Maryland: a cap of two months, interest at the greater of the one-year Treasury or 1.5%, 45-day return, and up to treble damages plus fees when there is no reasonable basis to withhold. Colorado: no cap, a 30-day return (extendable to 60 only if the lease says so), and treble damages plus fees for willful retention — and note Colorado overhauled its statute effective January 1, 2026, so read the current version, not an older mirror.[46, 41, 43, 42]

A Step-by-Step Timeline: From Lease Signing to the Check in Hand

Put the whole journey on one timeline. At signing, confirm which dollars are a refundable deposit and get the cap, the account rules, and the return deadline in writing. On move-in day, complete the condition checklist, get both signatures, and save dated photos and video to the cloud. During the tenancy, keep the lease and your evidence in one folder, and report needed repairs in writing so normal wear never looks like neglect.[5]

When you give notice to move out, follow the lease exactly on how many days and in what form. Before you leave, clean to move-in condition, request a walkthrough or, in California, an initial inspection, and take your move-out photos. On your way out, return the keys and hand over a forwarding address in writing — that is the moment the return clock starts. Then mark the deadline on your calendar and count. If it passes, or the deductions look wrong, send the demand letter; if that fails, file in small claims. Every step in this list is something you control, and together they are why most tenants who follow them get their money back.[18, 5]

Mistakes That Quietly Cost Tenants Their Deposit

Most lost deposits are not stolen; they are given away by a handful of avoidable mistakes. Leaving no forwarding address stops the clock before it starts and hands the landlord an excuse. Taking no move-in or move-out photos turns every dispute into your word against theirs. Leaving the unit dirty invites a cleaning charge you cannot argue with. And not knowing your state’s deadline means you never notice when the landlord blows it — which is often the strongest card you hold.[5]

A few more traps are worth naming. Be careful cashing a "payment in full" check — a check the landlord marks as full and final settlement can, in some states, waive your right to fight for the rest, so get advice before you deposit it. Do not wait too long: every state has a statute of limitations, and a claim you sit on can expire. Do not rely on texts and phone calls for anything that matters; put the demand in writing and keep proof you sent it. Handle these well and the deposit that so many tenants quietly lose stays exactly where it belongs — with you.[39, 5]

Frequently Asked Questions

Key Takeaways

The whole guide rests on one idea: the deposit is your money, held by the landlord under strict rules, and the leverage belongs to the tenant who knows those rules. In many states the money is held in trust and can even earn interest, and a landlord who commingles it or skips required interest is already in the wrong. So treat the deposit as yours from day one.

Then work the mechanics. Document the unit with dated photos on the way in and the way out, and get a signed checklist where the law requires one. Know that normal wear and tear is never deductible, and that even real damage is depreciated over a useful life. Give a forwarding address in writing to start the return clock, then hold the landlord to your state’s deadline — 14 to 60 days — remembering that missing it forfeits the deductions in many states.

If the money does not come back, escalate calmly. A written demand letter that cites the statute and the double or triple damages the landlord now risks resolves most disputes without a judge; if it does not, small claims court is built for exactly this. Watch the 2026 developments — California’s new photo requirement, the FTC’s active scrutiny of deposit practices, and the rise of non-refundable deposit alternatives — and you will be arguing from today’s rules, not last year’s. None of this is legal advice, so confirm your own state’s current statute before you act; the reference list below links straight to the law.