Landlord hasn't protected my deposit

[egdehsdrawkcab]

Found out today that after 9 months here in my rented house, my landlord hasn't protected my deposit in any of the three uk schemes that he is legally obliged to. Has anyone got any experience of this? Apparently he owes me compensation? He and I are in dispute over another matter concerning raw sewage in my garden, so this new development hardly surprises me.

Your landlord has broken the law. This means that you can take him to court and claim for compensation. It also means that any eviction notice would be useless. You can't take it him to court though until you've left and ask for your deposit back. Is this what you want to do?

Going to court, they will have to repay your deposit and you can claim up to x3 the deposit amount. Whether the judge would award this is up to them but likely to depend on whether they ended up protecting it before you left, so 'only' very late, and whether they did return the deposit at all.

Shelter can advise and will have template letters to help you re. Sewage

We had an advisor at uni who said if this happens to you you're actually really lucky as the compensation is £££ ( if you're a poor student!) And the process for claiming it isn't too arduous! (Apparently most cases are settled out of court)

Shelter have some good advice (assuming you're in England): england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/tenancy_deposits/tenancy_deposit_compensation_claims

I've done a bit of research now and seems like I'm best to sit pretty until the end of the tenancy (in a couple of weeks), wait for my deposit to be returned (though I reckon he'll try to retain some of it for wear and tear), and then claim for the compensation.

How have you found out deposit isn’t protected? Just in case there’s anything you are missing

The three schemes have online search functions and I've called them all too, seems none of them have it.

Drop HMRC a call. Unlikely they will be declaring anything either.

And check you have the right gas and electric safety checks in place.

I know he had kept his name on the electoral roll here

mortgage fraud too. read the how to rent guide on gov.uk to avoid a similar shafting next time - it will tell you what landlords should do.

report to environmental health and sue his sorry arse for the deposit.

I wouldn’t get your hopes up re compensation, that’s not really how it works.

You can take your LL to court to get your deposit back if he doesn’t return it, and a judge can award UP TO 3 times it back, but that happens very rarely. The majority of times it’s just returned.

However, it not being protected gives you plenty of leverage to get the deposit back in full and negotiate terms to your favour when the tenancy ends.