Tenancy Deposit Scheme to ease admin requirement for landlords

The Tenancy Deposit Scheme for Landlords is to change its system in April so that landlords will no longer have to update tenancy deposit information when a tenant stays on.

Currently, the scheme requires landlords to update the records when a tenancy becomes a statutory periodic tenancy.

The requirement applies only to landlords who use the TDS landlords’ scheme, and does not apply to letting agents or to landlords of TDS member agents.

The Tenancy Deposit Scheme for Landlords (or ‘DepositGuard’ for members who join via the Residential Landlords Association) was launched in January last year for landlords wishing to protect their tenancy deposits direct.

A TDS spokesman said: “With this newer membership, if the fixed term tenancy agreement ends and continues on a statutory periodic basis, members should update the TDS database to reflect this and for protection to continue.

“This is a very simple online ‘tick box’ procedure and the landlord receives up to four notifications from two months in advance of the end of the fixed term that they should do this. If deposit protection ends, both the landlord and tenant are notified.

“Although we have received consistently positive feedback on the usability of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme for Landlords (backed up by survey data), and have no evidence to suggest landlord members are failing to update tenancy information correctly, from April we are simplifying the IT system so that fixed term tenancies will automatically become statutory periodic on our database when they end.

“This is to reduce the administration for landlords and to remove any risk of them forgetting to update the database.

“As with any updates to the scheme which affect our members, all members of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme for Landlords will be duly informed once the updated procedure is finalised.”