Latest Update on the Tenancy Deposit Scheme

Keeping up to speed with the new TDS (Tenancy Deposit Scheme) Regulations and how landlords and agents should be preparing, we attended a very informative seminar by Lindsays Solicitors today. The likely launch date for the TDS is 2nd July which doesn't leave much time for landlords to ensure their policies, leases and tenancy processes and procedures are sufficiently robust to avoid being caught out - and the penalty could be up to £50k.

To quantify this, all deposits will have to be paid into a scheme and the scheme will ask for the landlords registration number at the point of entering the tenants information. The TDS scheme operators are duty bound to report the Landlords who answer ‘no’ to the ‘are you registered’ question and the maximum fine for not being registered is £50k.

More likely is that the tenant would sue the landlord if the  deposit was not put into the scheme and Sheriffs can award up to ‘3x deposit amount’ payable by the landlord to the tenant in such cases.

Lindsays have provided excellent advice and guidance on the subject of TDS as well as some other advice on recent regulation changes.