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 custodial-based scheme operated Deposit Protection Service (DPS).

How does it work?

The tenant/s pays the deposit to rileysnelling.com.
We register and send the deposit to the DPS to enable them to issue the tenant/s with a unique repayment ID number.
At the end of the tenancy we will agree with the tenant/s what happens to the deposit.
If we cannot agree, the tenant/s will be asked if they are happy for the dispute to be lodged with an indepenant Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) service, which aims to resolve the dispute quicky.
When the dispute is resolved, the DPS will contact rileysnelling.com to confirm how the lodged amount will be repaid.
Money repaid to us will be used to offset the cost of repairs or replacements needed in the property.

How is the landlord affected? *

for new ASTs, we will charge a one-off fee of £30 including VAT on each new tenancy registered with DPS
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