McMillan Law's office is in Tampa. I represent people in St. Petersburg and everywhere else in Florida, and the free case review happens by phone or online, so you don't have to drive anywhere to get started.
Last reviewed October 8, 2026 by Jackson McMillan, Florida attorney
Storm repairs on a St. Pete move-out bill
Hurricane Helene's storm surge in September 2024 and Hurricane Milton in October 2024 damaged many homes and rentals in Pinellas County. Maybe you stayed in your St. Petersburg rental through the repairs. Maybe you signed a lease on a unit that had been gutted and rebuilt. Either way, your lease is now ending in a place with a storm history.
Then the landlord's notice arrives, and the charges look familiar: drywall, baseboards, flooring, a mold treatment, a dehumidifier rental. Some charges on a list like that may be fair. Others may be storm costs the landlord is trying to recover from whoever happened to live there last. Sorting one from the other is most of the work.
What Florida says a deposit is for
Florida's definition of a security deposit includes money the landlord loses because the tenant broke the lease (Fla. Stat. § 83.43). Unpaid rent fits that description. Damage a tenant caused can fit it. Whether a storm repair fits depends on what caused the damage, what your lease says, and what the unit looked like when you moved in.
The deposit statute doesn't use the phrase "normal wear and tear," so these disputes turn on evidence: the lease, any move-in inspection, dated photos, and whatever repair invoices the landlord can or can't produce.
Whatever a charge is for, the paperwork rules don't bend. Before it can keep a dollar of the deposit, the landlord has 30 days after the rental agreement ends to send you a written notice with the amount and the reason, by certified mail to your last known mailing address (e-mail counts only under a signed e-mail agreement). Without that notice, the landlord forfeits the right to take its claim out of the deposit, though it can still sue separately once the deposit is returned.
Deadlines when a storm cut your lease short
The landlord's 15-day and 30-day clocks run from the day the rental agreement ended, which isn't always the day you moved out. If you left a flooded unit in a hurry, the end date may be open to argument, and that one date decides whether the landlord's deadlines have passed. Pinning it down is the first thing I do.
If you left before your lease term was up, another rule may come into play. Unless your written lease says otherwise, the statute asks a tenant who leaves early to give at least 7 days' written notice by certified mail or hand delivery, with an address where the tenant can be reached. Without it, the landlord can be excused from the 30-day notice, but you don't give up your right to the deposit.
Once a notice reaches you, you have 15 days from receiving it to object in writing. Those are calendar days, and a window that short is exactly why the notice should come to me first.
Upload the notice, the envelope it came in, and any photos from before and after the storms to my free case review, and I'll check the dates and the charges while your 15 days are still open.
St. Petersburg renters after Helene and Milton
Storm-related deposit disputes can come from anywhere in the city: a garden apartment in Kenwood, a bungalow in the Old Northeast, a house in Shore Acres, a condo downtown, or a rental on the Gulf beaches. Students renting near the USF St. Petersburg campus face the same rules, since the deposit statute reads the same for a St. Pete renter as for anyone else in Florida.
A St. Petersburg deposit case is filed in county court in Pinellas County, where the rental is. Pinellas shares the Sixth Judicial Circuit with Pasco County. Claims up to $8,000 can go through small claims; costs, interest, and attorney's fees don't count toward that limit.
My office is across the bay in Tampa. I take cases from St. Petersburg and all over Tampa Bay, and the review is by phone or online, so you can send photos from wherever the storm sent you. If storm charges ended up in collections and on your credit report, read my guide to credit report errors in St. Petersburg next.
Is fighting over a few hundred dollars worth it?
It can be, because of how Florida handles attorney's fees in deposit cases. Whoever wins can recover court costs plus a reasonable fee for their lawyer, paid by whoever loses. A lease can't waive that, and the court is directed to move the case ahead on its calendar.
The same rule can work against a tenant. If you sue and lose, you can be ordered to pay the landlord's fees, and Florida adds no penalty or multiplier to a kept deposit. I weigh both sides before I suggest filing anything. You don't pay me unless you win. I take these cases on contingency: no attorney's fees and no case costs owed to me unless you recover money. If a case is lost, a court can sometimes order the losing side to pay the other side's court costs, and some Florida laws, including the security deposit and deceptive practices statutes, also let the winner recover attorney's fees from the loser. I explain that risk before anything is filed, and every term is in a written agreement before you sign.
My security deposit dispute page covers how I approach these cases for tenants around Tampa Bay and across Florida.
Today's checklist for St. Pete tenants
- Find your before-and-after record: photos or video from move-in, from right after each storm, and from move-out.
- Pull together storm-repair messages. Texts or e-mails where the landlord or manager talked about inspections, contractors, or delays.
- Keep the notice and its envelope. Write the date you received it on a sticky note, not on the notice itself.
- Run your dates through my Florida deposit deadline calculator.
- Hold off on paying or signing anything that accepts the storm charges.
- Send it to me. The free case review takes a few minutes, and I'll tell you whether the charges and the paperwork hold up.