Here is a question to the Blog Clinic from Lynda who is a landlord.
If I protected the tenants’ deposit but failed to give them the booklet on guide to renting, can the tenant sue me at the end of the tenancy?
Answer
No, the tenant cannot sue you for failing to provide the governments ‘How to Rent’ booklet. Failure to provide that just means that you cannot serve a section 21 notice on them, until such time as it has been served.
However, when you protected the deposit, did you also serve notice on the tenants with the Prescribed Information? If not, then the tenants CAN sue you – for up to 3x the deposit sum.
They can sue you for this at any time during the tenancy and for up to 6 years afterwards.
You may be a bit confused as the legislation unhelpfully describes the How to Rent booklet as ‘prescribed information’. But it is not at all the same as the tenancy deposit prescribed information and different rules apply.
You can read more about the tenancy deposit Prescribed Information here.
Tessa,
You write “They can sue you for this at any time during the tenancy and for up to 6 years afterwards.”.
Is that 6 years after the end of the tenancy or 6 years after they failed to comply with requirements (i.e. 30 days after receiving the deposit)?
The six years is the limitation period for contract claims. It will probably run from the 31st day after the deposit was paid over – which is the date of the breach. After which any claim will be ‘statute barred’.
There is a guide to limitation periods here https://www.out-law.com/en/topics/projects–construction/construction-claims/limitation-periods-under-english-law/.
I’ve always understood and believe that a tenant could bring a claim for up to 6 years and 30 days After the deposit was paid.
Would you agree ?
That sounds right.
Slightly off focus – but can tenants sue a landlord for not providing smoke alarms (in cases where there has been a fire!).
I note that local authorities have duties to enforce the regs but a landlord can only be served with a penalty notice by the authority once a remedial notice has been served (requiring the LL to install alarms) and only if that notice is then not complied with.
If tenants can’t sue, landlords appear to be free to ‘flout the law’ until they’re asked to comply by the local authority – in which case they can simply install the smoke alarms at that point and can’t be held to account for their earlier failures.
Maybe but if the LA do get on the case, they may be able to impose a penalty charge of up to £30K. I’m not sure off the top of my head if that is actually available specifically for smoke alarms but it will be something that the LA can enforce against, maybe by way of an improvement order under the HHSRS. And the courts are imposing increasingly severe penalties.
Plus do landlords really want to risk their properties going up in smoke?
Good ones don’t, no. Bad ones will cut any corner they can and don’t realise what their responsibilities are in the first place.
I’ve just been looking at the smoke alarm regs lately and it’s highlighted a bit of an issue for me. Similar to the How to Rent booklet having to be issued; smoke alarms are often written about as if they must to be fitted. In reality a landlord cannot receive a penalty unless 1) the local authority find they’re not installed AND 2) the landlord then fails to comply with a notice the local authority serves requiring them to be to installed.
So if there’s a fire, the house burns down, and the LL didn’t install smoke alarms. Has the LL done wrong? Can the tenant sue? I’d like to think so but as I say above whether the LL is in the wrong or not is not as clear as it should be.