"Landlords! Agents! Avoid a False Sense of Security" - Warns the Tenancy Deposit Scheme
Landlords and agents should not be lulled into a sense of false security just because the new legal requirements for deposit protection, which come into force on 6 April, allow a 30-day period to supply proof of deposit registration to the tenant instead of 14 days.
The new regulations provide for the landlord to be sued on Day 31 for between one and three times the value of the deposit if the deposit has not been registered nor the proscribed information provided.
To help prevent this happening, The Tenancy Deposit Scheme has issued plain English answers to all the important questions thrown up by the changes coming into force this Easter when the Localism Act comes into force.
After summarising the changes, the Scheme's answers to frequently asked questions about the new regulations cover, amongst other things, whether or not the changes are retrospective, the penalties for missing the new deadlines, renewals, relevant persons and what happens with running tenancies.
"The new provisions for tenancy deposit protection are welcome," said Steve Harriott, Chief Executive of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, "but the extra time for registration is not a license for landlords and agents to ignore the law. It means that the anomalies in the original Act have now been straightened out to everyone's benefit."
Despite the extra time allowed to register deposits, in addition to the courts ordering payments of between one and three times the values of the deposit to the tenants, tenants can claim these payments after they have left the property.
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