Approximately 300,000 landlords are at risk of receiving enormous fines as a result of not placing tenants deposits into one of the multiple government-backed schemes. It is believed that a total of over £500m worth of deposits are not being distributed in to one of the three schemes.
This is still occurring in spite of penalties being introduced by the government last June. Landlords have remained undeterred by potential penalties ranging up to several thousand pounds. Fines are not of a set amount but are issued for three times the initial deposit a landlord has taken. On a typical deposit of £1,500 the potential fine could be £4,500 if the landlord is found not to have distributed a tenants deposit into an official scheme.
There are approximately 2 million landlords in Britain. Data produced by Cebr shows that around 25% of Britain’s total landlords are not in compliance with tenancy deposit protection legislation.
