The new tenancy deposit regulations have been in for just over a year now and we had hoped that it would make things more straight forward.
In short the rules are:-
1. the deposit must be protected within 30 days of receipt
2. you must give the tenant the prescribed information within 30 days of receipt
3. the deposit must be protected on every renewal of the tenancy.
If you issued a new tenancy agreement to existing tenants you had to re-protect the deposit. However, if you allowed your tenancy to roll over into a periodic tenancy you did not need to re-protect the deposit.
The majority of landlords I work with let their tenancies roll over to periodic tenancies, and it is a course of action I always advise.
However on 14 June 2013 Court of Appeal handed down a decision that states that if your tenancy rolls over into a periodic tenancy it creates a new tenancy and therefore the deposit must be re-protected within 30 days of the new tenancy.
This is going to cause a nightmare with many periodic tenancies having being created over 30 days ago meaning that if you protect the deposit late you can't serve a section 21 notice.
The advice at the moment is to contact the scheme that you use and ask for clarification on this.
If you do require any advice on tenancy deposits or section 21 notices please email me at propertyhawk@fidler.co.uk
Rebecca Brough
Solicitor
Fidler & Pepper
Periodic tenancies & roll over.
ReplyDeleteSo what do we do? Do we ask them for a new deposit and go throught the process of giving them the original deposit back,less any appropriate deductions, which can take quite a time before they receive it? Is the periodic tenancy for the same length of time as the original or is it just for a month which is the notice period then required? Fun if we have to get new and return old every month. The law is an ass.