I have come across several tenants that give big deposits to rent and not get it back because the previous owners are uncooperative . I was wondering if they can do anything about.

Most localities have some kind of landlord-tenant court or district justice system or some kind of legal ,odus operandi for these kind of things.
Give them the information and let them fly with it.
You do real estate, not lawyering.

good luck with that one

Tell them to consult a litigation attorney in there area as that is outside your area of expertise. You weren't a party to the contract so you can't give them an answer about it.

I had one where the tenants were foreclosed on and gave a big deposit and the owner took that money,and the monthly payments to the mortgage and ran to California from Georgia.

There aren't really any laws on that right now.It is pretty rampant in Ga.

In California, if their deposits are not returned to them within 21 days after vacating they can take their landlord to court. They have the option of filing in Small Claims Court or they can file in Superior Court, just like an Unlawful Detainer. There is plenty of info regarding how the laws work in connection with deposits online from the State of California. They'll get a judgment, enforcing it is going to be tough.

My association has copies of a handbook published by the California Department of Consumer Affairs entitled California Tenants, maybe your association does too (it's a free publication and is also available online). That's about all you can do.

Yep the actual statistics are about 90 percent of judgements never collect in full. So in reality you are taking that 2,000 deposit you lost and turning it into a 2,300 or 2,400 loss and lots of time and energy wasted trying to recover.

With that said if you do get a judgement there are specialist who are they do is force collections from wage granishment to bank garnishment. In this scenario say you are owed a 2,400 judgement,you pay them nothing but if they collect you split 50/50. before taking on the case they will check assetts and other items such as bank accounts and employment to see if they have a shot. if they tell you no they won't take it and they do this everyday you need to write off as you will most likley never collect. One day you might get lucky and they offer to pay it off for a fraction of the judgement but it rarely happens.

Yup, as CanDo sez, in Cali they can pursue the formwer owner, OR THE BANK, so long as they didn't sign any CFK since CFK agreements carry a release against such claims. The law sez jointly and severally, which means either or as far as who's responsible for the deposit.

If they ask for it and the former owners refuse to return it - now you're talking. There's a statutory punitive penalty of 2X the amount of the deposit.

So if you have something in the range of $2-$3K, it becomes attractive to guys like me. Send em' my way.