Refund of holding deposit (Help!?!)

[Alexander Lommel]

So I had one of my rentals up for rent and several showings scheduled within a few days period. One of the prospective tenants passed my background check and during the showing left a deposit to hold the property. As soon as she left a deposit I called two other showings and cancelled them and then took the rental postings down from all the usual listing services. There was a timeframe between the day I took it off of the market and the time she was prepared to sign the lease of 15 days. The only reason I allowed her to tie up the property and to cancel my other showings was because she left me a holding deposit of which I told her we would convert it over to her security deposit at the signing of the lease. 

Fast forward a week and she emailed me to inform me that she was having to back out of signing the lease and expects a full refund of the deposit. She also claims I never told her the deposit was for holding the property but rather she never intended me to cash the deposit (not sure why anyone would write a check if they never intended it to be cashed). I explained to her how a holding deposit works and laid out the scenario in which I got the rental back on the market and within two weeks of her signing the deposit over to me and my removing it off of the market, I would refund her the prorated amount out of the deposit that she cost me by missing out of the rent I would have received had I rented to someone else.

Bottom line, I don't have a written agreement of the deposit just a copy of the check she wrote and an email trail documenting everything mentioned above. Obviously in the future I will get it all in writing so no one can claim not to understand the meaning of a holding deposit. 

My question to my fellow BP'ers is how should I proceed? Is the check with the words "for deposit" written on it enough for me to proceed or am I wading into a sticky situation? She obviously is costing me money if I were to refund the entire deposit. 15 days missed rental income  ($645.20) because she had a change of mind is not acceptable to me.

Thanks in advance

[Todd Plambeck]

Give her deposit back, put it back on the market, find another tenant, and don't make the same mistake again.  I'm not a lawyer but you've got zero chance of prevailing in court.  You should keep taking backup applications until you have a signed lease and the first months rent is in the bank.