The Court of Appeal has this week imposed the maximum penalty on a residential landlord following a dispute with a tenant over prescribed information under the tenancy deposit rules.
The deposit had been properly protected and virtually all of the prescribed information had been supplied, and what was omitted was described as ‘minor’.
After the case, lawyers said the omission could have been put right by giving the tenant a copy of the Scheme’s leaflet – something the tenant could have got for themselves.
Landlords (or their agents) have a duty to produce a list of ‘prescribed information’ to all their tenants, covering standard information about how the relevant scheme operates. The exact information required is set out in the Housing (Tenancy Deposits) (Prescribed Information) Order 2007.
In the case of Ayannuga v Swindells, the landlord omitted to provide minor pieces of information listed in the prescribed information.
The case arose after the tenant allegedly fell into rental arrears and the landlord sought possession.
The tenant countered by saying that the landlord had not supplied all the prescribed information. The landlord did not dispute this, but argued that the requirement was largely a procedural one and that the deposit had been protected as the law required. The landlord also said that the tenant could have found out everything he needed from the scheme’s administrator.
Thus, at the first hearing, the landlord argued that he had provided most of the information and that the only deficiencies related to the mechanics of the scheme which the tenant could easily have found for himself from the provider of the scheme. The judge agreed and dismissed the claim brought by the tenant for the return of the deposit. The tenant then appealed.
This week the Court of Appeal overturned the earlier decision and awarded the tenant the maximum compensation of three times the tenancy deposit.
Luke Maunder, a property specialist with law firm Barlow Robbins, said: “This case has important implications for residential landlords and residential agents.
“It is not uncommon for minor pieces of information to be omitted from the prescribed information, particularly as the Act allows it to be produced separately from the Tenancy Agreement, and some required items instinctively seem less important as the tenant can find it easily elsewhere.
“In the case of Ayannuga v Swindells, the landlord failed to provide details of the procedures to be followed in certain events. Details of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme had been provided, but the omission of the additional information – potentially as simple as including a leaflet provided by the Scheme – has cost him thousands.
“The maximum fine is three times the deposit, but the landlord also forfeits the original deposit, so in reality it is four times. As a deposit is usually at least a month’s rent, a small error can be very costly.”
He advised: “All residential landlords and letting agents need to take note of the important decision in Ayannuga v Swindells and make sure that they provide all the necessary prescribed information, ideally well within the 30 days allowed.”
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Comments
This is the sort of thing that The RLA and other organisations need to be fighting.
I also have carehomes and we are also treated as rogues & crooks by the press & politicians, even though like the majority of Landlords we are trying to give a good service for a realistic price.
The box tickers are dragging landlords down the same path. Less return for more pointless rules and paperwork, and a more expensive service in the end due to the afforesaid boxticking. We are then accused of profiteering.
Its a lose lose scenario.
Even if you get a proof of posting for the prescribed information, with leaflet safely enclosed, how can you prove what was included inside the envelope when the tenants claim not to have received it?! An absolute farce and such a shame to set a prescience in this way.
In order to comply with this pointless redtape I have just printed out the prescribed information which is a 4 page document in itself and then feeling pleased that I had completed this daunting task I then discovered I had to download another 11 page document to attach to the first document!
Someone somewhere is probably getting well paid compiling this drivel which nobody actually reads anyway. It only succeeds in making life much more complicated than it has to be and not only for landlords.
And who I might add is going to pay for all that extra ink and paper!?
Unfortunately this is just the way things are going now since the government decided landlords were an ideal hybrid between a cash cow and a sitting duck. We'll see more hard pressed decent people robbed over their failure to dot i's and cross t's as more and more legislation is put in place to trap and catch them out. The objective is to make the process of eviction so punitive that the landlord avoids it at all cost and local authorities are thereby relieved of the responsibility of housing the tenant, while making lots of money in fines.
I have been buying to let for the last 15 years and during that time the industry has become unrecognisable , and not for the better. I recently discovered to my substantial cost , that the section 21 notice which I served, as I always have done, at the commencement of a tenancy and signed and dated as such- was invalid as the date of the deposit protection was a week later.
I agree with 'Neil'- it has become an awful business and only looks set to get worse.
Another 'evil' landlord trying to ripoff a poor tenant victim...
Oh, that's the way courts and every single public sector employee sees it !
Stay out of this awful business (I have multiple buy-to-lets I'd love to be rid of.... )
In a word....RIDICULOUS!
How can landlords continue to conduct their business in a fair and reasonable manner when such silly petty squabbles over nothing get out of hand and the law takes the side of the tenant as usual even when they are obviusly in the wrong?