Same with court fees.By the way, my lease includes a clause for "Application of Rent" that says any payments made are applied to outstanding charges in the following order:Tenant-caused billingsNSF fees, late fees, service feesUtilitiesSecurity depositUnpaid rent (oldest to newest)Let's say the tenant owes $600 in unpaid rent, $100 in utility, and $50 for the eviction notice.

At this point the units are all leased out, gross rents are 9k, value of building is about 1.875M based on reasonable comparables, current loan outstanding is 600k, building cost to complete about 1.45M.I need to refinance, simple reason is I need to takeout equity from this property so I can build more homes elsewhere (have 8 homes planned to build in the next year).

And even though he doesn't have to, he's still out there busting it out (@Frank Wolter, you need to take it easy a bit, brother - life is short and dollars are fleeting ;)  ). 

@Costin I.Those were outstanding links including the second to last forum thread which I read all 132 comments.

Achieving the outstanding RE returns takes time and effort. 

(Irregardless of the actual law, it would arguably make total sense if the landlord could keep the deposit until the end of a fixed term lease, as security for the outstanding rent payments that the tenant is obligated to pay; but what makes rationally sense is a whole different topic as laws not always make sense.)

I don’t have experience with bidding on land but I won a house at auction and did a lien search through a title company and it cost me 150$ but it to me it was worth 150$ then to be surprised with an outstanding lien.

If you sold that property, you would lose the HELOC and have to pay back whatever was outstanding. 

Furthermore, as we all know the first few years of mortgage payments are mostly all interest expense and less principal, so my outstanding balance on the debt is remaining roughly the same.

That project has now been completed, and the results are outstanding!