Superstike – Deposit Protection rules reminder

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

Original Article posted 29/03/2015

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