Question

Deposits and Tenancy Deposit Schemes (England)

Penalties for non protection

27 Jun 2018 | 3 comments

There have been 3 fixed term tenancies between same LL and tenants at same property
Can the tenant claim the up to 3 x penalties for each of the separate fixed term tenancies or juts for the entirety of the whole periods combined?

Answer

3 Comments

  1. guildy

    Yes, a penalty would be payable for each tenancy if the tenant has a lawyer who knows what they’re doing!

    • eden2011

      Wow seriously! Is that also the case if not protected on say a first fixed AST which went periodic, and that the periodic also counts in terms of it should have been protected as well?

      Imagine if this went on for say 7 fixed terms and a periodic, and the depoist was 2000 the sum could be 50k or so!!

      This is actually related to a s8 tent arrears Claim where the tennat has put in a counterclaim for what I am Describing above. If the level of counterclaim is above the arrears does that render the s8’notive invalid?

  2. guildy

    Yes that’s right!

    A deposit is deemed re-protected when it goes statutory periodic but that only applies if it was correctly protected within 30 days. Otherwise, there’s no protection from the law and it’s another failure.

    Note: this doesn’t apply to a contractual periodic because that’s deemed as a single tenancy for both fixed term and periodic unlike the statutory periodic which is two tenancies (fixed term is one and periodic is two).

    If the penalty is decided before possession is ordered it could wipe out the arrears sufficiently to make the section 8 fail.

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