Here is a question to the blog clinic from Sandra (not her real name) who is a tenant
I have been renting the same property for over ten years. My deposit was not protected as my AST began before April 2007. The fixed term of my tenancy ended and it became a statutory periodic tenancy, again this was previous to April 2007.
My landlord has now issued a section 21; with the recent changes in legislation regarding protection of deposits will this render the section 21 notice invalid?
Answer
At the moment, if the tenancy deposit was paid before April 2007 AND the fixed term ended before April 2007 AND the landlord has not given you any new fixed term agreements, he is compliant with the legislation.
So I am afraid the section 21 notice served on you will be valid.
However there are new regulations pending although I do not know when they will be coming into force. I understand that under those new regulations, ALL tenancy deposits will need to be protected, including those paid before April 2007.
NOTE – this situation is now changed by the case of Charalambou v. Ng which was not published at the time this post was written. At the time of writing this the s21 notice will not now be valid.
Hi Tessa,
What do you make of the commencement order of the Localism Act that states the following?
“the amendments made by section 184 of the Act apply in respect of any tenancy deposit received by a landlord in connection with a shorthold tenancy where the tenancy was in effect on or after 6th April 2012.”
That’s correct Tessa, the Deregulation Bill when passed will require all deposits on active ASTs to be protected. It does seem that this landlord has been compliant with the law as it stands though.
We don’t have any definite dates for the Deregulation Bill becoming law yet, but we will keep readers updated.
Thanks Chris, thats very helpful.
Good point Romain I had to think twice before commenting.
I think Tessa is right though and so is Chris. The Deregulation Bill when an Act hopefully next April will give an emnesty to tidy up anything that needs tidying up courtesy of the amendments made and when we eventually get them.
As I understand it if a tenancy was periodic prior to 6.4.07 and absolutely nothing has changed, then protection is still not required. Whether Dereg Act 2014 changes that we will have to see.
Post Localism Act any Landlord who did not by 5.5.12 tidy up a tenancy that should have had its deposit protected originally where the tenancy started post 6.4.07, or there had been a renewal post that date, or a re-let, is in trouble.
Long standing tenancies that have not changed their spots since 6.4.07 far as I am aware are OK.
Could Chris comment that the Dereg Bill will make it in April and not be timed out by the Election? Bity worrying that the amendments are still being debated when the original very optimistic hope was that it might be law by last October?
Hi IO,
Yes, I’m sure that the intention was as you have stated.
However the wording of the commencement order is so wide ranging and apparently unambiguous that it triggered discussions since 2012.
Hence my question as to whether it is indeed clear cut because, perhaps, of other considerations.
This being a government bill may obtain cross party agreement to nod through before the session ends. It is relatively common for the main parties not to oppose final votes towards the end of a session unless there are fundamental objections to the whole of a bill.
Having glanced at it some of it is tidying up existing Acts where bits are out of date.
There may be one contentious issue related to housing that may cause difficulty in getting cross party support and that is the reduction of the qualifying period for a tenant to buy their Council house to three years.
Councils do not have a lot of scope for replacing stock.
We can never predict when a Bill will get through, but it is in the final stages now so there’s no reason for it not to go through before the election and I would expect early in the new year.