Have you forgotten to protect your tenant’s deposit?

November 13, 2019

The tenancy deposit legislation has been with us for over 10 years now – it came into force in April 2007 – but there are still many landlords who seem to be totally unaware of it.

Meaning that those landlords take a deposit and don’t do anything with it.

Which is serious bad news.  It means:

  • They can’t serve a valid section 21 notice, and
  • The tenant has a potential claim against them for up to 3x the value of the deposit

A few years ago when I still did quite a bit of telephone advice I did call after call where, after discussing their section 21 notice and whether the date in the notice was correct, the landlord would say something like:

“Oh, and I protected the deposit a bit late – but that’s allright isn’t it?”

Sigh.  No it isn’t!

So I decided to create a kit which would help landlords in this position.

I can’t remember now why I decided to call it ‘the deposit error repair kit’ as it is a bit of a silly name.  However I still can’t think of anything better and it has the advantage of having the acronym ‘DERK’.

The Deposit Error Repair Kit

The kit was initially published on my Legal Kits website where it did pretty well.

However what with all the work on the new Landlord Law site it got a bit out of date.  I did not do anything on it for a while (and the kit was withdrawn from sale) as that site is going to be closed down.  But eventually I found the time to update it and move it over here.

So there you are.  The Deposit Error Repair Kit is now on Landlord Law and available for purchase.

I am not going to be making it available to Landlord Law members (as they already have the Tenancy Deposit step by step guide) so it is a buy only kit.

However if you are not a member or want something a bit more detailed, you should find it very useful.  Content includes:

  • Information on how the law works
  • Relevant ‘case law’
  • Practical guidance
  • Information and guidance on prescribed information notices
  • Guidance on how to prove compliance,
  • Information about the penalty for non compliance, and
  • Guidance on section 21 generally

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Not a Landlord Law member?  Find out more here.