Landlords should not be lulled into a sense of false security just because the new legal requirements for deposit protection allow a 30-day period to supply proof of deposit registration to the tenant instead of 14 days as from next week – April 6.
The warning has come from the Tenancy Deposit Scheme.
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 prescribed information provided.
To help prevent this happening, the TDS has issued plain English answers to all the important questions thrown up by the changes this Easter when the Localism Act comes into force.
After summarising the changes, the Scheme’s answers to FAQs about the new regulations cover whether or not the changes are retrospective, the penalties for missing the new deadlines, renewals, relevant persons and what happens with running tenancies, among the other points to be understood.
“The new provisions for tenancy deposit protection are welcome,” said Steve Harriott, TDS chief executive. “But the extra time for registration is not a licence 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.
The plain English answers to the new provisions for deposit protection can be found at:
www.tds.gb.com
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