Forgotten to protect deposit

[jpkeates]

Either the tenant or the credit union can take you to court for the deposit and penalty.

[olibird]

I posted this query before but no one seemed to know the answer, but I know there’s some keen landlord tenant legal eagles out there in the forum somewhere so I’ll give it another go…..

I’m the landlord of a property where the deposit was paid by and must be returned to a credit union….. I forgot to protect the deposit in time (I’ve now returned it to the credit union)…. my question is, as the deposit is not due back to the tenant, can the tenant still take me to court for not protecting in time?

thanks

[olibird]

Anyone any idea whether the tenant can take me to court or does it have ve the Credit unión who it is repayable to?

[olibird]

The section 8 would simply bring the matter to a head early.
The court is able to award the penalty to reduce any rent arrears during the possession claim hearing.

There is no possible way in 2021 to "forget" to protect a deposit.
It takes about 5 minutes online (ignoring the Prescribed Information).

How is it not possible to forget to protect the deposit? The time it takes to do it isn’t relevant to whether you remember to do it or not,

[DPT57]

The tenant can't successfully both not pay rent and sue you for a deposit penalty. The one is going to be offset against the other in either your possession hearing or his claims hearing.

[jpkeates]

The section 8 would simply bring the matter to a head early.
The court is able to award the penalty to reduce any rent arrears during the possession claim hearing.

There is no possible way in 2021 to "forget" to protect a deposit.
It takes about 5 minutes online (ignoring the Prescribed Information).

[DoricPixie]

The deposit did appear to belong to the tenant albeit it was getting paid to you via a credit union. Presumably if the tenant had money deducted from the deposit at the end of the tenancy he would then have owed that money to the credit union.

He could sue you but as you decided to return the deposit when you realised your error then I wouldn’t expect a court to award him any more than 1x the value of the deposit.

As soon as the tenant owes you 2 months rent issue a Section 8 ground 8. You can either include the arrears as part of the Section 8 claim or you could do it separately through MCOL.

[olibird]

Also, if tenant leaves with rent arrears, assume I can take them to court, would it be via the Small Claims Court? Don’t know if I’d do this, but want to know what I have in my hand as it were.

[olibird]

My tenant’s deposit was paid to me by a credit union under a ‘cash deposit agreement’.

I forgot to protect the deposit in time (which was of course one of the conditions of the agreement). When I realised, I repaid the deposit to the credit union, this was around 3 weeks after the date I had to protect it by.

My tenant has now discovered this and is planning to take me to court (he has basically also told me he won’t be paying any more rent after this month until he plans to leave at the end of the tenancy in 4 months time).

Can he take me to court over this do you think or would it only be the credit Union that could do this?

[olibird]

Was it actually money transferred to you or what I think it might if been, a promise to pay up to a certain amount, depending?

Money transferred to me. I’ll be following the advice of most on here and arranging to repay it tomorrow.

[theartfullodger]

Was it actually money transferred to you or what I think it might if been, a promise to pay up to a certain amount, depending?

[olibird]

If it's a loan to you, it's possibly not a deposit.

Could you describe the arrangement?

It’s a deposit bond agreement, so is a deposit.

[theartfullodger]

Was it a loan that tenant took out with credit union that was then paid to you?

But, as before, return now and pray. Or risk bigger penalty when judge realises you found out about problem but then delayed...

[jpkeates]

If it's a loan to you, it's possibly not a deposit.

Could you describe the arrangement?

[olibird]

DoricPixie,

Thanks. The deposit is effectively a loan to me from a credit union as the tenant was previously in temporary accommodation. The deposit and first month’s rent were organised by the council where he was living before.