Northern Territory Consolidated Acts Northern Territory Consolidated Acts(1) A retail shop lease is taken to include provisions to the following effect:
(a) money paid by the tenant to the landlord as security for the performance of the tenant's obligations under the lease is to be held by the landlord on behalf of the tenant:
(i) in an account mentioned in section 50 of the Agents Licensing Act 1979 ; or
(ii) in any other interest-bearing account;
(b) if the landlord holds money in accordance with paragraph (a)(i) – Part V of the Agents Licensing Act 1979 applies in relation to that money;
(c) if the landlord holds money in accordance with paragraph (a)(ii):
(i) the landlord must account to the tenant for interest earned on the money but the landlord is entitled to retain the interest and deal with it as money paid by the tenant to the landlord to form part of the security deposit concerned; and
(ii) the landlord is not entitled to unreasonably refuse to accept a guarantee from an ADI in satisfaction of a requirement to provide security in the form of a deposit, bond or third party guarantee for the performance of the tenant's obligations under the lease.
(2) Subsection (1) does not prevent the landlord appropriating security moneys in accordance with a lawful entitlement to do so.