Deposit protection deadlines: what happens if you miss them?

If you take a deposit on an Assured Shorthold Tenancy in England or Wales, you must:

1. Protect it in a government-approved scheme (DPS, TDS or MyDeposits) within 30 days of receipt.
2. Give the tenant the prescribed information (scheme name, contact details, what they need to do at the end of the tenancy) within those same 30 days.

Miss the deadline?

The penalties bite hard:

• The court can order you to pay the tenant between 1x and 3x the deposit amount.
• You cannot serve a valid Section 21 notice until you've returned the deposit (or paid the penalty into court).
• Tenants can sue up to 6 years after the failure.

It's one of the few areas of UK landlord law where the penalty is essentially automatic. There's no "I forgot" defence.

Custodial vs insurance-based schemes

• Custodial (DPS free service): the scheme holds the money. No fee for landlords.
• Insurance-based (TDS, MyDeposits, DPS Insured): you keep the money but pay a small per-deposit fee.

The legal protection is the same. Pick whichever fits your cashflow.

Returning the deposit

At the end of the tenancy you have 10 days from agreement to return whatever you and the tenant agree on. If you can't agree, the schemes' free dispute resolution is binding and (in our experience) generally fair.

Track it in havelo

Deposit references and scheme details live alongside the lease in havelo (/dashboard/contracts). The Legal Cases module also tracks deposit dispute cases as their own type, so the audit trail stays in one place.

This is general guidance only. For a deposit dispute that's already in flight, get advice from a solicitor or your scheme's free arbitration service.