You can take court action to claim compensation if your landlord breaks tenancy deposit protection rules.
You can claim compensation of 1 to 3 times the amount of your tenancy deposit if your landlord:
• doesn't protect your tenancy deposit in a tenancy deposit protection scheme
• doesn't give you certain information about the scheme being used
• takes too long to protect your deposit or give you prescribed information
We also act for landlords who are seeking to defend claims made against them by tenants for failing to protect their deposit in an authorised scheme and have a very high success rate.
Jhawer v Vatts. County Court at Brentford, 18 February 2016
Mr V was the assured shorthold tenant of Mr J. The first tenancy began in 2006. Mr V paid a deposit to Mr J’s agents, who later went out of business. In 2009, Mr J granted Mr V a tenancy of a different property, with further tenancies of that property granted in 2012 and 2014. Each tenancy agreement stated that a deposit had been paid. (Mr J argued that this was an error through using a template).
In 2015, Mr J served a s.21 notice and brought possession proceedings. Then a possession order was made at a hearing Mr V did not attend. Mr V applied to set aside the order and strike out the claim.
Mr V argued that Superstrike v Rodriguez [2013] EWCA Civ 669 applied and that the deposit paid for the first property should be deemed to have been received by Mr J in respect of the second property. The deposit had never been protected (or returned).
The District Judge held that Superstrike applied by analogy at least. Mr V had been entitled to the return of the deposit at the end of the tenancy of the first property. This was regardless of the fact that the agents had gone out of business. Any deposit requirement under the new tenancies was fulfilled by a right of set off of the right to claim repayment of that first deposit, and thus a deposit was ‘paid’ in Superstrike terms, regardless of whether the subsequent tenancy was of the same property or a new property. The lack of repayment of the deposit, together with the tenancy terms on the second property requiring a deposit, showed a deposit had been paid in respect of the second property, and not protected.
The s.21 notice was invalid and the claim for possession dismissed.
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