Landlords rejoice as Superstrike problems are no more!!

17:04 PM, 29th March 2015, About 10 years ago 25

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Landlords up and down the country will (or should) be celebrating the demise of the ridiculous rules we have all had to put up with following the Court of Appeal decision in the Superstrike case.

This is due to the amendments in the Deregulation Act 2015 which received the Royal Assent on 26 March, and which (so far as the tenancy deposit rules are concerned) came into force immediately. I have spent the morning amending all the relevant sections on Landlord Law, so this should now be up to date.

The rules are now as follows:

Deposits taken before April 2007 where the tenancy became periodic after that date

All deposits must now be protected and the prescribed information must be served. You have been given a period of 90 days to deal with this – i.e. until 23 June 2015.

If you protect and serve the PI within this time, the deposit will be treated as if it had always been protected. If you don’t, you will be in breach – with no excuses!

Deposits taken after April 2007 that have been protected and the prescribed information served during the original fixed term

These will be treated as if the prescribed information had been served on every renewal or whenever a statutory periodic tenancy arose – even if the prescribed information was served late initially. Provided of course that the deposit continues to be protected with the same deposit scheme.

So you no longer need to keep re-serving the prescribed information. Once will do.

Deposits taken before April 2007 which became periodic before that date

Here you are not in breach of the law and you don’t have to protect the deposit now.

However the deposit must be protected or the money returned to the tenant (or the person who paid it) before any s21 notice can be served. Landlords will not be liable for any financial penalty for non protection.

Otherwise – the new rules will not help you if you have failed to protect a deposit taken after April 2007. They were passed just to deal with the problems associated with the Superstrike decision.

Court proceedings

If you are involved in court proceedings for possession, you can take advantage of the new rules, unless you case was concluded some time ago and you are out of time to appeal.

Letting agents

The prescribed information rules have also been amended to allow for agents’ details to be given instead of landlords’ details where the agent is dealing with the deposit.

If you want to sign up to get my mailings you can do so at www.landlordlawinfo.co.uk

All the best

Tessa Shepperson – Landlord Law

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Comments

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

17:13 PM, 29th March 2015, About 10 years ago

Thank you for sharing this with Property118 members Tessa, it's very kind of you 😀
.

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Gilly

18:44 PM, 29th March 2015, About 10 years ago

Thanks for the information Tessa.

Is it still necessary to inform the "mydeposits" or whoever, that the tenancy is entering a statutory periodic tenancy and then re-issue the certificate to the tenants, or has that gone too?

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Tessa Shepperson

18:46 PM, 29th March 2015, About 10 years ago

You had better speak to My Deposits about that.

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Fed Up Landlord

19:17 PM, 29th March 2015, About 10 years ago

Hallelujah. No more killing rain forests reserving PI. Yippee!

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jayne williams

19:20 PM, 29th March 2015, About 10 years ago

Hi Tessa,

I have been waiting for this news, thank you.

"Deposits taken before April 2007 where the tenancy became periodic after that date* - to be clear does that mean if the tenancy became periodic after April 2007?

I have a deposit that was taken on 14 3 06 and the tenancy became periodic in September 2006. Does that mean I don't have to register it?

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Rod

20:03 PM, 29th March 2015, About 10 years ago

The other rediculous rule where housing benefit is paid direct to DSS tenants will hopefully be got rid of too. This causes problems for 'everyone' including gov' staff! Where's Guy Fawks when you need him!

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Paul Franklin

10:15 AM, 30th March 2015, About 10 years ago

There was a rumour that a 'commencement order' was going to be attached to this Deregulation Act delaying the date when the legislation took effect? As I've heard nothing about this I assume this is not going to be the case?

So therefore I assume there's also a lot of other important changes, to Section 21s in particular that are now in effect? e.g:
- They can no longer be issued within first 4 months of an AST
- 6 months time limit on enforcing them
- No longer a need to get the end date 'right'
- Retaliatory s21s invalid for 6 months if council has served a repair/improvement notice (only applieds to new tenancies for first 3 years from now)

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Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

11:30 AM, 30th March 2015, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Gilly " at "29/03/2015 - 18:44":

Just tweeted to MyDeposits ....

@mydeposits do your members need to re-serve PI to remain compliant with your scheme rules now that the Deregulation Bill has Royal Assent?

— Mark Alexander (@iAmALandlord) March 30, 2015

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Tessa Shepperson

11:34 AM, 30th March 2015, About 10 years ago

My understanding is that most of the Deregulation Act clauses are subject to commencement orders. However the tenancy deposits items were considered so urgent that they come into force immediately.

I think that the retaliatory eviction items for example come into force in October. This is why my mailing concentrated just on the tenancy deposit items.

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Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

12:08 PM, 30th March 2015, About 10 years ago

The reply to my Tweet to MyDeposits ..........

@iAmALandlord our guidance on dereg is here http://t.co/b5GOjLX4CO

— my|deposits (@mydeposits) March 30, 2015

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