Tenant vacated property before contract was up without notice

[NA Smith]

What are the first steps to take when a tenant breeches their contract and leaves property without notice 3 months before contact is up.  We want our money

[Daryl Luc]

They probably did you a favor.  Get moving on renting it out.  By all means, keep the deposit, it's yours now. 
My advice, unless the damages you find run into the thousands, move on and do a better job of vetting your prospects going forward. If you go into court without an attorney, yeah it's cheap, but now you have to collect. That costs extra. If you're an LLC, you have to take an attorney, even in small claims....that costs a lot extra, and you still have to go through collections to get anything on a judgement.