Hi Guildy, I am signing up a group of students on tuesday for the next academic year in september.
I have received a retaining fee which will turn into the deposit when the prescribed information is signed and dated. Can I get the students to sign the prescribed information on Tuesday undated and wait until just before the start of the AST and date and sign myself and pay DPS or if they sign on Tuesday does it start the countdown of 30 days. thanks
Question
Deposits and Tenancy Deposit Schemes (Wales)
Prescribed information and Deposit for Student Let
Answer
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1 Comment
The requirement to protect the deposit and give the prescribed information is within 30 days of receiving the deposit in connection with an AST. Note how it’s not from commencement of the AST. Simply being in connection with is a sufficient trigger.
Therefore, our view is that you should get the prescribed information signed at the same time as the tenancy is signed and that is when the clock starts ticking for the 30 days. This is so, even if you sign the tenancy and prescribed information tomorrow (or over the next couple of weeks) but it doesn’t commence until September. You are correct that you can leave everything undated until everyone else has signed then, you sign and date the agreement and that’s when the 30 days starts in our view. When leaving out dates, you would also need to leave out the fixed term dates for this to work.
There are some that believe even a holding a deposit before a tenancy is granted is a deposit that needs protecting due to the in connection part. However, we don’t hold that view because it may be that an AST is not granted and instead an assured tenancy could be granted – it’s as yet unknown whilst you have the holding deposit.