Peace looms in battles of the carpet stain

guardian.co.uk 22nd August 2006
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Students should not be alarmed by the delayed introduction of mandatory rental deposit protection; help is available right now. David Brill reports

More than 1 million students will move into rented accommodation over the next six weeks, handing over vast sums of money in deposits.

Without financial protection, many students will be at the mercy of their landlords and, at the end of their leases, could find themselves charged £20 for a light bulb or hundreds of pounds for carpets that were stained before they moved in.

It will soon, however, be mandatory for all landlords to join a deposit protection scheme, whose introduction has been delayed from October this year until April 2007.

The new requirement - which will cover all short-hold tenancies within the private rented sector - may come too late for students starting in the new academic year but they have been assured that help is available in the meantime.

"There is no need for second and third year students to wait until mandatory deposit protection is in place, some time next year," said Lawrence Greenberg, chief executive of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS).

"Students can already take advantage of deposit protection and the no-cost, independent dispute resolution we provide."

As well as advising renters to use its deposit protection services, the TDS suggests they use only affiliated letting agents, who are also members of the industry's three professional bodies: Arla, the NAEA or Rics.

Over 1,300 letting offices now offer deposit protection but surveys suggest many tenants and landlords remain unfamiliar with the TDS, which was launched two years ago.

"Sometimes these disputes are found in favour of the landlord, sometimes the tenant, but in most cases we find merit on both sides," Mr Greenberg said. "The rate at which we have been adjudicating and apportioning deposit monies has risen sharply ... from under 200 cases for the whole of 2005 to well over 300 within the first six months of this year."

In one case, the TDS became involved when a landlord retained a tenant's entire deposit, of £1,525, citing damage to curtains, floors and the kitchen hob. Following investigation, £926 was returned to the tenant.