From March 2015 there are three changes relating to the protection of tenant’s deposits that landlords, letting agents and tenants should be aware of:
Where you have a tenancy, with deposits taken before April 2007, but was not protected, and the tenancy has since become periodic after that date, the deposit must now be protected and the prescribed information must be served. You a 90 day period of grace to do this – i.e. until 23 June 2015. If you protect the deposit and serve the Prescribed Information (PI) (s213 notice) 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! You will be barred from evicting using a section 21 notice and subject to a fine of up to 3 times the original deposit.
Where a deposit was taken after April 2007 and that was 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. A proviso here is that the deposit continues to be protected, within the same deposit scheme. So, thankfully now, you no longer need to keep re-serving the prescribed information on tenancy renewals or when they become periodic. Just one original serving will suffice.
Where a deposit was taken before April 2007, which became periodic before that date, 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 a section 21 notice can be served. Therefore landlords will not be liable for a financial penalty for not protecting the deposit but will need to take further action if they need to use the eviction process.
