Law regarding statutory periodic and deposit protection

solidpro

Lover_of_Lycra said:

solidpro said:

It ruled a statutory periodic tenancy is a new tenancy and as such all deposits had to be re registered and new prescribed information given, by not doing this it invalidated any section 21 notices.  The same does not apply to CPT

You can't register a deposit protection via a SP tenancy with MyDeposits. It has to be an AST.

A statutory periodic tenancy is an AST. 

When setting up a new protection the first thing it asks is the start and end date of the AST with new deposit I'm protecting. What's the end date of a SPT?

solidpro

Robbo66 said:

But you would have had the option to mark it as periodic and create a new registration certificate which should then have been given to the tenant along with the prescribed information.

We did and we have the certificate. There is no requirement to provide the information again.

MobileSaver

solidpro said:

We have 4 confirmations from the scheme that we did comply and adhere, along with a current certificate of coverage for the tenant.

Correct.

• Adhered to the Scheme

It seems more than a little odd that you yourself said you did not adhere to the rules of the scheme, have pointedly ignored this apparent contradiction and in fact deleted your initial post where you stated this.

Regardless, if the Scheme has given you written confirmation that the deposit was protected in accordance with the scheme for the entire tenancy then there's no case to answer; simply forward that confirmation to the tenant's solicitor and that should be the end of the matter.

However, for the avoidance of doubt, if the Scheme has simply said the deposit would have been covered retrospectively but does not confirm you complied with the rules between the AST and SPT then under strict liability you have broken the law and the tenant can claim against you.

[Deleted User]

solidpro said:

Lover_of_Lycra said:

solidpro said:

It ruled a statutory periodic tenancy is a new tenancy and as such all deposits had to be re registered and new prescribed information given, by not doing this it invalidated any section 21 notices.  The same does not apply to CPT

You can't register a deposit protection via a SP tenancy with MyDeposits. It has to be an AST.

A statutory periodic tenancy is an AST. 

When setting up a new protection the first thing it asks is the start and end date of the AST with new deposit I'm protecting. What's the end date of a SPT?

You can have fixed term AST and periodic AST. 

Robbo66

solidpro said:

Robbo66 said:

But you would have had the option to mark it as periodic and create a new registration certificate which should then have been given to the tenant along with the prescribed information.

We did and we have the certificate. There is no requirement to provide the information again.

Certificate no, Prescribed information yes if the tenancy went to a SPT. By giving a new certificate would have been proof that the deposit was registered in accordance with both the scheme and legislation as perceived and ruled upon in the Superstrike case and its that ruling that any judge will reference when looking at your situation.

At the end of the day all responses here are just individula opinions but the only opinion that matters is that of the judge when it gets to court so I hope that you come back with his/her ruling as and when it happens.

solidpro

Just to conclude for future reference. 

It was just settled this week. Whilst there was a 'gap' caused by a clerical issue, it didn't cause any harm (we had already proven that they could have used the deposit protection insurance throughout the 3 months after vacating) and could be proven to be a genuine error. We felt it possible that a judge would strike a balance and agree that whilst it wasn't intentional, a mistake was made and the law sets a minimum of 1 x deposit amount rather than the 3 x they were saying they wanted, so the 1 x deposit amount was equally likely as thown out, but not more.

The issue was more to do with costs. If we went to court and the judge ordered us to pay cost, the costs could have spiralled from £500 to £5000 or even £10,000 as well as our own. As the costs were currently fixed at £500, we thought a P36 offer of 1 x deposit would be an offer which would be seen by a judge to show us to be very fair landlords and limit our exposure to being ordered to pay more costs.

We did not refund the £250 for damage to the property as there was no argument about that.