Deposit Protection Schemes

Nebulous

Hello,

When my partner first took out her tennancyit was through an estate agents. When it came to renew the contract in March, the Landlord requested we took the Estate Agents out from it to save money and cut costs.

However, now he is refusing to use a DPS (he didn't even know they existed - or was playing stupid) and we have advised him that its against the law to not do so.

Last night she recieved another text message from him saying he needs to get the deposit sorted quickly, and doesn't have the time to set up one of these DPS and saying things like "Do you not trust me?"

His persistance, and rush for the money is starting to concern me. We have been trying to contact the CAB today - but they are all too busy.

What rights does she have if the Landlord wants to kick up a fuss and try an evict her? Also, whats the best route to take? Keep being addiment that she will only use a DPS and risk annoying him majorly?

Any advice would be great.

Dave.

BitterAndTwisted

It's the landlord's legal responsibility to ensure that the deposit is protected regardless of which party the money was physically paid over to. The only benefit of the deposit not being protected is that should the landlord apply for repossession it will fail in court until it is protected.

There are three schemes: DPS, TDS and MyDeposits, not only one.

Werdnal

It is a legal requirement to protect the deposit. This can either be done in one of the schemes, or there are apparently insurance based protection plans (I know nothing of these as I use the Deposit Protection Service).

Do a quick Google search and find some documents relating to the Deposit Protection requirements. Print them off and send/give to your LL. There is a suggested 3x the deposit value penalty for LL's who refuse/fail to protect the deposit, although recent court cases have failed to enforce this legislation - but if your LL is naive enough not to know about the need to protect, he may be unaware of the lack of enforcement of the 3x ruling.

Its is the LAW. If your LL does not abide by this, I would say they may also be guilty of failing in other regulations regarding letting, and may turn out not to be a good LL to have. Do you know for instance, if they have a mortgage on the property, and if so, do they have consent to let it to you? Are other things like gas safety certificates in place?

It is also possible that LL does not want to "formalise" the letting by lodging the deposit, as they are not declaring their rental income for tax. I know we shouldn't jump to conclusions here, but it does raise suspicions when LL's refuse to abide by the rules that there is something a little underhand going on.

Nebulous

Unfortunately he doesn't seem to want to budge on the idea of using one. Which makes me think that he is just wanting the money to in his pocket rather then as a deposit. Probably wants a new Audi!

Should we just stay strong and refuse him the deposit until he arranges it? Also, he has already signed the contract saying we have given him the deposit, which I think was quite stupid of him.

Really I don't want her to have the hassle of taking him to court so I would like to be able to settle things in the easiest way possible.

Edit: He didn't have a clue about the schemes, but we sent him the link to the direct gov page mentioning it, which also explains all of the fines etc on it. So i'm surprised he still wants to not use one.

Thanks for your quick responses.

BitterAndTwisted

I think your partner's response the the LL's comment about not trusting them is that it's a legal requirement to ensure that the deposit is protected. Therefore it's not a matter of choice. Has your partner ever received any notification from the agent about which scheme was used when the tenancy started?

BitterAndTwisted

Wait: are you saying that the landlord is asking for a new deposit now that the agents have refunded the original one to your partner?

Nebulous

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Wait: are you saying that the landlord is asking for a new deposit now that the agents have refunded the original one to your partner?

It was originally done via DPS set up by the agent, which we got all of the money back from.

He then requested it himself as the contact is now only between my partner and himself.

tbs624

LL is an idiot. LA should have passed the deposit to him and he should then have got it scheme registered.

LLs who talk about deposit registration as if it is some huge time consuming process are talking hogwash. It can be done and dusted online in a just a few minutes: DPS is custodial and free to use (LL physically hands money to the scheme) or LL can use one of two insurance backed schemes where he retains the actual funds ( there are fees involved and some LLs seek to pass those onto the T)

Unfortunately, recent cases have hugely undermined the intention of the deposit regs and as someone else has suggested it may be that your LL is cutting corners elsewhere.

If your OH decides to repay the deposit to the LL she should of course inist that it gets scheme registered - if LL refuses then he cannot serve a valid notice of intent to repossess.

Note that even if the deposit does get registered, if one party won't agree to use the scheme's arbitration process to resolve any deposit dispute then the other party will *have* to use the small claims court.

Nebulous

tbs624 wrote: »

LL is an idiot. LA should have passed the deposit to him and he should then have got it scheme registered.

LLs who talk about deposit registration as if it is some huge time consuming process are talking hogwash. It can be done and dusted online in a just a few minutes: DPS is custodial and free to use (LL physically hands money to the scheme) or LL can use one of two insurance backed schemes where he retains the actual funds ( there are fees involved and some LLs seek to pass those onto the T)

Unfortunately, recent cases have hugely undermined the intention of the deposit regs and as someone else has suggested it may be that your LL is cutting corners elsewhere.

If your OH decides to repay the deposit to the LL she should of course inist that it gets scheme registered - if LL refuses then he cannot serve a valid notice of intent to repossess.

Note that even if the deposit does get registered, if one party won't agree to use the scheme's arbitration process to resolve any deposit dispute then the other party will *have* to use the small claims court.

Well apprently my OH and the LL had to tell the EA that she was moving out (I think to terminate his contract with the EA) and that someone else was going to move in.

I don't doubt he is up to something, as its taken him two weeks to reply since we last told him no. - He could have set it up in that time!

Problem is, even if he says he has set up something liek DPS i'm not sure I would trust him to put the money into it. The CAB has requested to see both the old/ new contract to review it - so thats getting sent off today.

BitterAndTwisted

The landlord should not register the deposit until he has received it. Why do you think that the landlord should do this before he's received the funds from your partner?

Nebulous

I may have miss understoof something thing - I was under the impression he would at least have to register/ sign up to the scheme, before requesting the money to go into it.

Even so, regardless of the order it gets done in, he is still refusing to use one.