Q: how long for refund of rental deposit?

Werdnal

If there is any doubt over the legitimacy of deposit deductions, it is normally the LL who has to fight the deposit scheme, as they tend to favour tenants.

If your new tenancy started over 30 days ago, and the LL has not yet protected the deposit, she has already breached the protection legislation and you can sue her for 1-3x the deposit value for failure to comply. She is an absolute idiot and so are her other tenants for allowing her to do this - their acceptance of her not protecting does not over-ride the law.

Insist it is protected, but bear in mind that if she gets funny at the end of the tenancy, the option to sue for lack of protection within the 30 day timescale is valid for 6 years from the date of that 30 day deadline, so you can use it against her if the going got tough when you eventually move out!

I still cannot believe that over 6 years since the deposit regs came into force in England/Wales, there are still ignorant LLs who either will not or cannot understand that it is LAW to protect the tenant's money!

benjus

Caveat_Mortgagor wrote: »

Quick question though. With such a big deposit, how much rent were you paying? I think the limit for the deposit protection scheme is £25k per annum.

This was raised to £100k pa almost 3 years ago.

isleofdogs

Yes, we have got the Gas safety certificate.

dimbo61 wrote: »

Have you got a Gas safety certificate?

isleofdogs

Our tenancy started more than 6 weeks ago. LL went overseas for more than a month soon after we moved in. She promised to secure our deposit on her return. She is now back for almost 2 weeks and kept promising to do it. I will have to remind her - I do not want to threaten her with court action that she has breached her legal duties to secure our deposit within 30 days of moving in because we have handed her a list of things to be fixed. We want her to fix some of these things first.

Werdnal wrote: »

If your new tenancy started over 30 days ago, and the LL has not yet protected the deposit, she has already breached the protection legislation and you can sue her for 1-3x the deposit value for failure to comply. She is an absolute idiot and so are her other tenants for allowing her to do this - their acceptance of her not protecting does not over-ride the law.

Insist it is protected, but bear in mind that if she gets funny at the end of the tenancy, the option to sue for lack of protection within the 30 day timescale is valid for 6 years from the date of that 30 day deadline, so you can use it against her if the going got tough when you eventually move out!
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