Tenancy Deposit Scheme declared 'a success'
Friday, 4 April 2008 12:46 AM
The government's Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS) has been declared "a success" by a leading provider, one year after its introduction.
MyDeposits.co.uk has taken 200,000 individual deposits - totaling over £1.77 million - and has seen them protected throughout the year by over 31,000 landlords and letting agents since the scheme's launch on April 6th 2007.
With such a large number of deposits taken the organisation has only received notification of 341 actual disputes.
"After only 12 months, it is quite clear tenancy deposit protection has clarified the rights and responsibilities of tenant, landlord and letting agent," said David Salusbury, chairman of MyDeposits.
"With so few disputes actually being notified and only 20 per cent of these requiring external adjudication, it seems that this kind of self-regulation is proving to be extremely effective."
Only 20 per cent of the 341 reported disagreements (64 cases) of the more intractable cases needed to be adjudicated through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).
This process relies on evidence provided by all parties in order to reach a final and binding decision on how much, if any, of the deposit should be returned to the tenant.
In 86 per cent of these more serious disputes, the ADR has found in favour of the tenant - as a result 45 per cent will have received their full deposit and 41 per cent will have received a proportion of their deposit as determined by the adjudicator.
In 11 per cent of these cases landlords and letting agents have been able to withhold the total deposit.
"The risk to landlords of not complying with the legislation is considerable," continued Mr Salusbury.
"Not only would a landlord appear to be totally oblivious to their legal obligations but they will receive a fine amounting up to three times the deposit. In addition, for as long as the deposit remains unprotected, a landlord faces significant limits on their ability to seek possession."
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