Why are security deposits so high in Bengaluru?

A ₹35,000 flat in Delhi wants ₹70,000 up front. The same flat in Bengaluru wants ₹3,50,000. Nothing about the property explains it, which is why the question keeps getting asked and never quite answered.

The honest answer: nobody is enforcing a limit

There is a law. The Model Tenancy Act, 2021 caps residential security deposits at two months’ rent, and six months for commercial premises.

The word doing the work is model. Land and housing are state subjects, so the Act is a template the central government published for states to adopt, and a state has to pass its own version before it binds anyone. Many have not. Where nothing binds, the number is whatever the market will carry.

And in Bengaluru the market carries a lot

Three things stack up, and none of them is about the flat.

Demand outruns supply, consistently. Enough people want a place at any given moment that a landlord asking ten months will find someone. If you will not pay it, the next person will, and both of you know it.

Salaries made it payable. The deposit norm hardened during the years the city’s tech salaries were climbing fastest. A norm that people can meet is a norm that survives.

Landlords price in the eviction problem. The stated reasons are default, damage, and tenants who will not leave, and the deposit is the only leverage available without going to court. Whether ten months is a proportionate response is a different question, but the incentive is real.

The result is a city-by-city spread with no logic to learn, only a number to ask for:

• Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata: two to three months is the common ask.
• Chennai, Hyderabad: three to six, often higher for independent houses.
• Bengaluru: six to ten is routine, and ten is not considered aggressive.

What that money actually costs you

Here is the part that gets reasoned about badly in both directions.

Counting the deposit as an expense is wrong, because you get it back. Treating it as free is also wrong, because for as long as you live there it is doing nothing. Ten months on a ₹35,000 flat is ₹3,50,000 sitting still for two years.

What it costs is the difference between sitting still and sitting somewhere that pays something. That is not a number anyone can tell you, since it depends on where you would otherwise have kept it, which is exactly why the tool below asks you for a rate rather than assuming one. It is a comparison you choose, not a forecast, and nothing here predicts what any account would pay.

Brokerage is the opposite case and simpler: that one is gone. A month’s brokerage across a two-year stay is background noise. Across six months it is four times heavier per month, which is why how long you actually stay belongs in the arithmetic rather than in the footnotes.

What you can actually do about it

Three things, none of which require winning an argument about the law.

Get the refund terms in writing, with a timeline. The common dispute is not whether you get it back, it is when and what gets deducted. A clause naming a number of days after handover is worth more than any verbal assurance.

Ask what “deductions” covers. Normal wear is not damage. If the agreement does not distinguish them, the distinction gets made later by whoever is holding the money.

Ask to trade deposit against rent. It is sometimes possible, particularly where the landlord’s constraint is monthly income rather than capital. Whether that trade is worth taking depends on how long you plan to stay. A shorter stay makes the upfront amount matter more, a longer one makes the monthly rent matter more, and the figures above will tell you which one you are.