Apartment Security Deposit refunds in Maryland
In Maryland, a landlord must hold your security deposit in an escrow account and pay you interest when returning the deposit.  The interest is simple interest; it does not compound. The interest rate that they must pay has changed over the last 43 years.  Before October 1, 2004, the rate was 4%.  Until January 1, 2015, the rate was 3%.  Currently, the rate is 1.5% OR the simple interest rate accrued at the daily U.S. Treasury yield curve rate for one year, as of the first business day of each year, whichever is greater.  (This year, the rate is 1.5%.)  Maryland's Department of Housing and Community Development has a Security Deposit Calculator for easy calculation of this interest; however, it only works for deposits since January 1, 2015. It is unclear to me whether the interest rate in effect is the one that was in place when the security deposit was made, or if the rate changes over the years.   At most, if you get 4% interest every year, I would expect you to receive $429.76, which is $158 + ($158 * 4% * 43).  The interest is accrued every 6 months, so you would not get any interest for the 3 months that you rented in your 44th year. (With the new law that took effect this year, interest is accrued monthly.) At least, if the interest rate changes with the new laws, I would expect you to receive $413.18, which is $158 + ($158 * 4% * 32.5) + ($158 * 3% * 10.25) + ($158 * 1.5% * 0.5). Some text on the Security Deposit Calculator suggests that the laws for Prince George's County are different than the rest of the state.  If you are in that county, you'll need to check the local ordinances to see what security deposit policies apply.
Generally, banks will report your loan to at least one (if not all three) credit bureaus - although that is not required by law. The interest you're paying, in addition to your insurance isn't justifiable for building credit. I would recommend paying the car off and then perhaps applying for a secure credit card if you are worried about being rejected. Of course, since you have very little credit, applying for an unsecured card and getting rejected won't hurt you in the long run. If you are rejected, you can always go for a secured credit card the second time.  As I mentioned in my comments, it's better to show 6 months of on-time payments than to have no payment history at all. So if your goal is to secure an apartment near campus, I'm sure you're already a step ahead of the other students. Basically the balance you see in your account is the amount of money you currently have a right to (based on the fact that you have deposited it with the bank) you can of course take this money out pretty well whenever you like or move it however you like. However your bank account is not physical money, the currency you deposite is warehoused and used as the bank sees fit, your account is simply a statement keeping track of how much money the bank is holding for you.   The banks ability to use deposited funds to make money relies on the fundamental assumption that not everyone is going to withdraw all of there deposited funds at once. All banks will have legislated liquidity requirements (how much money needs to be kept in cash or near cash securities (short term interest bearing paper basically) in order to allow for pretty much any reasonable number of people to withdraw any amount of money.Additionally the bank as you said makes money on its loans, securities trading and investment banking activities, that money belongs to the bank and gives them even more money to play around with.  Obviously there have historically been instances in which bank runs occur (everyone tries to withdraw all there money at once, bank dosent acctually have enough liquid assets to pay) or cases in which a bank experiences solvency issues for other reasons (having to pay out poorly thought out speculative securities transactions RE north american housing crash in 2008) in these cases there are consumer protection agencies that insure financial institutions against insolvency (varies by country) But under most normal circumstances the bank uses some portion of deposited funds to make money and has systems in place to ensure an individual person can access there deposited funds as needed.   TLDR: account statement just shows how much money you have given the bank and can thus claim back from them (in the form of withdraw) bank has legally dictated cash reserve percentage to allow for everyone to withdraw money when they need it under most normal circumstances. In my view you are going through quite a bit of logistics to achieve this. Best is drop this idea. If all of you are paying equally, then there is virtually no gain. A better pact is not to gift each other on wedding. We want to open a joint fixed deposit account in name of each one of us which should be locked-in till 2020 Yes it is possible to have Joint Account with multiple names. Ideally all should be present or a Power of Attorney can be created to include names of people who are not present. We want our money to be risk free and secured. Risk free and secured will mean Fixed Deposits. At Bella Vista Wedding, you will find professional &amp; skilled wedding videographer &amp; cinematographer in Virginia, Maryland &amp; Washington DC. With having 10 years of experience in the industry, we are passionate &amp; known for creating high quality, highly diverse wedding videos. STEP #1. Get a copy of whatever you have signed, this is the most important step. STEP #2. Find a reference to the landlord/tenant laws for you city, county and or state if there are any. STEP #3. Google for a tenants union in your city, state or county. ie, Washington State Tenants Union STEP #4. Try get a free consultation, or an affordable consultation with a lawyer in your area who specializes in tenant law. STEP #5. Between the tenant laws for you, and the limits of what you have signed try to negotiate a cancellation of the contract, if you are bound by it. "This is accepted law in Pennsylvania, however, I will defer to your expertise and state that the decades long precedents are incorrect and every judge that allows cases to continue is wrong and you are correct.    The Internet is great for things like that.    Hopefully the next person in court can simply state:  No your Honor, the landlord did not follow established law!   Court rulings be damned.    I was on reddit and /u/OriginalSimba stated unequivocally said that what is happening is ""legally impossible"" and that the decades of precedent that exist is simply because ""the court screwed up"".    Heck, they can take it further to state that ""every lease in Pennsylvania is illegal"".    I offer sarcasm as a response but if this was a single ruling I might agree with you.  It's well established here in the great Commonwealth of PA.  I say it's been around 30 years because I've been a landlord here for over 20 years, and a renter for about 10 or so before that.  The clause has always been there.  The basis for today's laws here in PA are from the Landlord Tenant Act of 1951.  I'm not a lawyer so I can't tell you when the first waiver of rights came about but it's very possible it could go back that far." Why would you even accept 75K in cash? If anything is going to trigger an audit, this will be it. 75K in cash deposited will look like money laundring, so you better have a paper trail ready to prove this is legal or this won't end well. I have USAA and the home loan process was a nightmare.  My account was also compromised but I caught it immediately because they sent me an alert of a large sum of money being transferred to my checking account, so there is that.  I just found out that Navy Federal finally accepts Army veterans (it hadn't up until a couple of years ago) so I have an account with them just so I can get different loan options and credit card rates.  Navy Federal has minimums for getting ATM refunds while USAA doesn't, so for now I just have a savings account with them.