I have discussed this situation before, but am prompted to write about it again, as a result of the recent experience one of my Landlord Law members.
He tells me that he arranged for a letting agent to protect the deposit, which they did with My Deposits. He then went away travelling for a year. While he was away, the agents ceased acting for him save for looking after the deposit. However then, unbeknown to him, the agency busienss was sold to another company.
The landlord, on returning back to this country, found that the new company had no record of receiving the deposit money. It also seems that My Deposits wrote to him and to the tenant telling them that the deposit was no longer protected, but neither appear to have recieved the letter.
The landlord is therefore left to pay the deposit money back to the tenant out of his own funds. He is also at risk of being sued by the tenant for the penalty of three times the deposit sum, as the deposit has been unprotected for some time.
This just goes to show that often the DPS is the best and safest scheme. Here the money is actually handed over to the scheme administrators so there can be no question of it getting lost and the landlord having to foot the bill.
What do you think? have you experienced this type of situation? Were you able to resolve it?
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I agree absolutely Tessa.
Rees Page are both solicitors and letting agents and when we were reviewing which of the deposit schemes to recommend to our clients there was no question in our mind that the DPS scheme was the one which operated in the best interests of Landlords.
We have seen a good number of letting agents in the Wolverhampton area come and go over the last few years and with the Government not likely to regulate the lettings sector Landlords have to take steps to protect themselves and they should insist that their agents make use of the DPS scheme.
Totally agree, if the Government are not going to regulate the lettings industry and I confess to sympathising with that approach, then it is essential that any centrally licensed TDP facilities ‘fail safe’. To enable that to occur, then the ability of any scheme to ‘unprotect’ a tenants deposit retrospectively, having taken the fee specific to that lodgement, must be withdrawn.
My landlord failed to place my deposit with a protection scheme for four months, he then entered my property without warning, despite the fact that in the contract he should give me 24 hours notice. If things get worse, I need to take some action. Would he be theoretically liable to pay me three times the deposit?
Probably, although we are all waiting for a Court of Appeal decision to be published which hopefully will clarify the law in this area.
However your landlord should not enter your property without warning and against your wishes. Have a word with the Housing Officer at your local authority. They may agree to write to him on your behalf asking him to stop.