Deposit protection and prescribed information: the 30 day clock

What the 30 days covers #

GOV.UK is direct about the first part: the landlord or letting agent must put the tenants' deposit in an approved scheme within 30 days of getting it. The approved schemes are the Deposit Protection Service, mydeposits and the Tenancy Deposit Scheme.

The second part is the one that generates the paperwork. Within the same 30 days the tenant must be given the prescribed information, which GOV.UK lists as:

Ten items, per tenancy, per deposit, assembled from information that already exists in three other places. That is a transcription job with a legal deadline attached.

What happens when it slips #

GOV.UK says a court may order the landlord to repay the deposit to the tenants or pay it into a custodial scheme's bank account within 14 days, and may also order repayment to the tenants of up to 3 times the original deposit within 14 days of the order.

It may also decide that the tenants do not have to leave the property at the end of the tenancy where a scheme was not used when it should have been. That is why this deadline gets a page of its own rather than a line in the compliance diary.

Where the 30 days actually goes #

Not in the registration. Registering a deposit takes minutes. The 30 days is usually lost in the gaps around it.

• The money lands somewhere unexpected

  A tenant pays the landlord directly, or pays into the wrong account, and nobody starts the clock because nobody treats it as received.

• The tenancy changes shape after the deposit arrives

  A named tenant drops out, a guarantor is added, a joint tenant is swapped, and the prescribed information now describes a tenancy that no longer exists.

• Nobody can say whether the information was served

  The registration is evidenced by the scheme; the prescribed information is evidenced by whatever your agency's filing happens to be.

• It is a part month

  A deposit received on the 29th with a move in on the 1st feels finished on move in day, and the paperwork gets closed out in the following month's tidy up.

What runs on rules #

Nearly all of it.

Two related rules worth holding together #

Under the Renters' Rights Act, landlords and letting agents cannot require rent in advance before a tenancy begins, and can take up to one month's rent in advance, or 28 days' rent for rental periods shorter than a month, once the agreement has been signed. Separately, an agent in England holding client money must belong to an approved client money protection scheme.

Money in, money held, money returned: three regimes, one bank account, and a deadline on each. The place to start is tenancy setup, where the deposit first arrives, and the free tools will put a number on the admin around it.