Tenancy Deposit Protection

New legislation affecting tenants' deposits came into effect on 6^th April 2007.  The Tenancy Deposit Protection (TDP) was introduced under the Housing Act 2004, and applies to all new assured shorthold tenancies (ASTs) in England and Wales where a security deposit is taken.

 There are two main aims:

•  To ensure good practice in deposit handling, so that when a tenant pays a deposit, and is entitled to get it back, he or she can be assured that this will happen.

• To assist with the resolution of disputes by having an Alternative Dispute Resolution service (ADR).   

To comply with the regulations, new deposits held by rileysnelling.com are protected by an insurance-based scheme operated Tenancy Deposit Solutions Limited (TDS). 

 How does it work?

• the tenant pays the deposit to rileysnelling.com
• we retain the deposit in a dedicated client money account
• we pay a fee to TDS and the scheme will insure against us unlawfully retaining the deposit at the end of the tenancy
• at the end of the tenancy we will agree with the tenant what happens to the deposit
• if we cannot agree and the tenant complains to TDS, we will lodge the disputed amount with them
• when the dispute is resolved, the lodged money will be repaid to the us and the tenant in accordance with the agreement, dispute resolution, or court order
• money repaid to us will be used to offset the cost of any repairs or replacements needed in your property
  

How is the landlord affected?  *

• for new ASTs, we will charge a one-off fee of £40 including VAT on each new tenancy registered with TDS
• in the great majority of cases we are able to reach agreement with the tenant over the amount of deposit needed to cover the cost of repairs etc
• where we cannot reach agreement there will, in future, be a short delay in applying the deposit withheld whilst the dispute is resolved by an independent case examiner