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Deposit Not Secured - No GSC - Potentially Unathorised Tenants

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13

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  • Pixie5740
    Pixie5740 Posts: 14,515 Forumite
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    Wanderingpomm wrote: »
    The law says this:

    If the court finds your landlord hasn!!!8217;t protected your deposit, it can order the person holding the deposit to either:

    repay it to you
    pay it into a TDP scheme!!!8217;s bank account within 14 days
    The court may also order the landlord to pay you up to 3 times the deposit within 14 days of making the order.

    That's not what the law says. The says,
    3A) The court may order the person who appears to the court to be holding the deposit to repay all or part of it to the applicant within the period of 14 days beginning with the date of the making of the order.]

    (4) The court must order the landlord to pay to the applicant a sum of money [not less than the amount of the deposit and not more than ] three times the amount of the deposit within the period of 14 days beginning with the date of the making of the order.

    Source: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/34/part/6/chapter/4

    The court has no choice but to award the tenant 1 to 3 times the deposit because the law says that they must, not that they may or might but that they must so that part is definitely going to happen.

    I don't know why you're still making these ridiculous claims because this has been explained to you before on other threads.
  • Wail
    Wail Posts: 265 Forumite
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    Would it help if I told you what happened to us?

    We moved in with an agency arranging everything. We were novices to this and assumed that the agency had got on with protecting the deposit. They didn’t. The landlord should have done.

    Our landlord didn’t pay the mortgage

    We received two hand delivered letters from the banks representatives to the occupier noting that eviction proceedings were set to take place.

    The law has changed on chucking tenants out of properties. They don’t just throw you out as long as you provide appropriate evidence. They wanted a copy of the agreement and wanted to know what we were paying. Their advice was to keep paying the landlord. We were given two months by the bank.

    With the deposit not protected, we had a discussion with Shelter. They advised the same thing (1-3x the deposit) but our view is that if they were heading towards bankruptcy, any legal action would be fruitless. We served a formal letter with a clear note telling the landlord that they wouldn’t get the last months payment and a note that this was an absolute bargain compared to a court case. The letter was responded to in 24 hours.

    We had a few shouting matches with the landlords representative but they were advised that we would protect the property and hand the keys to them.

    The bank repossessed the property a few weeks after we left.
  • Wanderingpomm
    Wanderingpomm Posts: 524 Forumite
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    Pixie5740 wrote: »
    That's not what the law says. The says,



    Source: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/34/part/6/chapter/4

    The court has no choice but to award the tenant 1 to 3 times the deposit because the law says that they must, not that they may or might but that they must so that part is definitely going to happen.

    I don't know why you're still making these ridiculous claims because this has been explained to you before on other threads.

    That says the tenant must get their deposit back (deposit x1) not nessacrily that there is a fine as well.
  • Pixie5740
    Pixie5740 Posts: 14,515 Forumite
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    edited 19 August 2018 at 7:31AM
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    Wanderingpomm wrote: »
    That says the tenant must get their deposit back (deposit x1) not nessacrily that there is a fine as well.

    That's not what it says at all. I don't know why you find this so difficult to grasp. There's the deposit itself to be dealt with and then there's the penalty which is equivalent to not less than the value of the deposit and not more than 3 times the value of the deposit. You're not helping anyone by continually posting mis-information about deposit protection. Try familiarising yourself with the law.
  • Wanderingpomm
    Wanderingpomm Posts: 524 Forumite
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    Pixie5740 wrote: »
    That's not what it says at all. I don't know why you find this so difficult to grasp. There's the deposit itself to be dealt with and then there's the penalty which is equivalent to not less than the value of the deposit and not more than 3 times the value of the deposit. You're not helping anyone by continually posting mis-information about deposit protection. Try familiarising yourself with the law.

    I work in legal advice & have sat through a high number of these court cases. Therefore I have some clue what i!!!8217;m talking about.

    The money must be either put into a scheme or returned.
    Then the court MAY also include a penalty.

    The paragraph I posted in an earlier comment is copied from court documents so is correct.
  • G_M
    G_M Posts: 51,977 Forumite
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    edited 19 August 2018 at 1:46PM
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    Wanderingpomm wrote: »
    I work in legal advice & have sat through a high number of these court cases. Therefore I have some clue what i!!!8217;m talking about.

    The money must be either put into a scheme or returned.
    Then the court MAY also include a penalty.

    The paragraph I posted in an earlier comment is copied from court documents so is correct.
    You may work in legal advice, but if so you need to keep up to date.

    The Housing Act that set up deposit registration, and created the penalty, has been amended twice.

    As pixie said (and quoted - read the Act!) the law now says "must...." not "may".

    Frankly you should not be working in legal advice if this is typical of your out-of-date knowledge.

    See in particular the wording of the Housing Act 2004 section 214 (4) as amended (do not just read the original wording from 2004!).


    Housing Act 2004 (Section 212: tenancy deposit schemes)

    Localism Act 2011 (Section 184: tenancy deposit schemes)

    Deregulation Act 2015 Ss 30-32 (amendments to Housing Act & Localism Act re S21 service, & penalties)




    Perhaps my guide would help with your work:

    * Deposits:     payment, protection and return
  • Pixie5740
    Pixie5740 Posts: 14,515 Forumite
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    Wanderingpomm wrote: »
    I work in legal advice & have sat through a high number of these court cases. Therefore I have some clue what i!!!8217;m talking about.

    Your posts would suggest otherwise. If it's remotely true that you work in legal advice then that's both embarrassing and terrifying.
    Wanderingpomm wrote: »
    The money must be either put into a scheme or returned.
    Then the court MAY also include a penalty.

    The paragraph I posted in an earlier comment is copied from court documents so is correct.

    Except that's not what the legislation says so what you are claiming to be correct is codswallop.
  • Lost_Property
    Lost_Property Posts: 21 Forumite
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    Bulls actually navigate china shops as lightly as a ballet-dancer. I saw a TV demo - it was amazing.

    Agree with everyone regarding premature timing, but you could say to him "now that you know we're not completely naive saps let's negotiate a less one-sided deal on more level terms and avoid any authorities unnecessarily poking their noses in." Your LL doesn't have to like you, but you do need him to respect you, even fearing you. He needs reminding which side his bread is buttered (and where the butter is coming from).

    You'll regain a little favour further down the line by reminding him of things you are not insisting he fusses about and even fixing a few niggly things yourself. He can't actually get rid of you other than by illegal means and you would land him in it if he tried, so you're more secure than tenants of an "honest" LL in constant fear of valid S21s.
  • Comms69
    Comms69 Posts: 14,229 Forumite
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    Wanderingpomm wrote: »
    I work in legal advice & have sat through a high number of these court cases. Therefore I have some clue what i!!!8217;m talking about.

    The money must be either put into a scheme or returned.
    Then the court MAY also include a penalty.

    The paragraph I posted in an earlier comment is copied from court documents so is correct.

    I believe you do work broadly in the field... perhaps booking appointments at CAB
  • getmore4less
    getmore4less Posts: 46,882 Forumite
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    Wanderingpomm wrote: »
    That says the tenant must get their deposit back (deposit x1) not nessacrily that there is a fine as well.

    as before

    http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/34/part/6/chapter/4
    Includes any amendments by the
    Localism Act 2011
    Crime and Courts Act 2013
    Deregulation Act 2015
    Housing and Planning Act 2016



    214 subsections 1,2,3,4 apply (application while a tenant)
    (1)Where a tenancy deposit has been paid in connection with a shorthold tenancy [F5on or after 6 April 2007] , the tenant or any relevant person (as defined by section 213(10)) may make an application to [F6the county court] on the grounds—

    [F7(a)that section 213(3) or (6) has not been complied with in relation to the deposit, or]

    (b)that he has been notified by the landlord that a particular authorised scheme applies to the deposit but has been unable to obtain confirmation from the scheme administrator that the deposit is being held in accordance with the scheme.
    (2)Subsections (3) and (4) apply [F9 in the case of an application under subsection (1) if the tenancy has not ended and ] the court—

    [F10(a)is satisfied that section 213(3) or (6) has not been complied with in relation to the deposit, or]

    (b)is not satisfied that the deposit is being held in accordance with an authorised scheme,

    as the case may be.

    (
    3)The court must, as it thinks fit, either—

    (a)order the person who appears to the court to be holding the deposit to repay it to the applicant, or

    (b)order that person to pay the deposit into the designated account held by the scheme administrator under an authorised custodial scheme,
    4)The court must F13... order the landlord to pay to the applicant a sum of money [F14 not less than the amount of the deposit and not more than ] three times the amount of the deposit within the period of 14 days beginning with the date of the making of the order.
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