UK Landlord Forum / Life

Just putting this out there - With the new potential of falling foul of DPS requirements plus grief and financial penalty potential from tenants becoming increasingly aware they can extort multiples of their deposit from landlords, I've been giving consideration to just what is the value of a deposit nowadays.

Personally, I've never had a dispute over witholding all or part of a deposit, however from some stories going around, I've either been lucky or carefull -  so far.

Of course, holding tenants monies in the form of a deposit is usefull, however with the exception of rent arreas, I suspect unless the damage was blindingly obvious, it would be the devil's own task to prove to a third party that wear and tear and/or damage was caused by tenants as inventories are quite blunt instuments for describing condition. For example - defining good or poor condition is quite subjective unless this can be backed-up with photographic evidence. It's sods law that the checking-in photo is not sufficiently well defined enough to provide absolute proof - if of course, you've captured an image of the whole room area in question. Any third party adjudication is of course mindful that a deposit is the property of the tenant and would on a balance of probability rule the deposit must be returned.

I guess we'll never really know until the problem arrises.

So, is there an alternative?

Options -

1. We could of couse, simply not bother with deposits. Probably not a good idea and possibly an over-reaction if you're certain about your procedures. Also of course, a deposit does focus the mind of the tenant to maintain the property on good order, and some do, while other tenants it would seem to me, it makes no difference in practice.

2.  Don't take a deposit which removes DPS requirements and liabilities, but charge a higher initial months rent in lieu with the justification it's to cover wear & tear. A standard AST allows for this. Of course applicant tenants may choose to rent elsewhere paying a standard deposit, especially if there is plently of alternative properties available. Also tenants may consider they can be casual about maintaining the property knowing there's no deposit to be returned anyway. Maybe we could use this for some properties/tenants and not others, depending on our assessment of how well a tenant is likely to treat the property.

What do you think?   




     

If I was a prospective Tenant then I'd not want to rent from a Landlord who was trying to circumvent deposit protection (however, that might be attempted). Even if you claimed that you were going with Door #1 a Tenant who was self-aware would suspect you were actually doing Door #2 anyway, e.g. they were being charged a higher rent to compensate you for any damage.

Deposit protection is easy. It shows you play the game by the rules. As your trainers would advise - just do it!