The government is being urged to take action to clampdown on landlords that fail to protect tenants’ deposits in an approved scheme.
Recent research from comparethemarket.com suggested that around a third of landlords have not placed their tenant’s deposit into a government-backed deposit tenancy deposit protection scheme.
This equates to in the region of £1.2bn of deposits which could be unprotected, according to anti-deposit campaigner Ajay Jagota of Dlighted.
Jagota said: “This is literally a billion-pound scandal. The government must take action.
“Our research has revealed that crooked landlords and letting agents are convicted to thieving more than £1m of deposits every year, but we’ve always said that we feared the true figure could be hundreds of times higher – and this survey backs up our belief.”
Jagota unsurprisingly wants to see more landlords and tenants to use his company’s deposit-free renting solution that helps tenants rent property for zero deposit by using deposit replacement insurance to give landlords and letting agents cover against property damage, unpaid rent and legal fees.
He added: “Deposit free renting doesn’t just make it easier to find and keep good tenants while protecting landlords better, and at the same time making it cheaper to rent – by delegating damage claims to an independent insurer it guarantees that if repair work is needed, it gets done.”
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Nothing more than advertising for deposit free renting
Tenants should pay a cash deposit like every other sector providing returnable goods
no deposit = increased rent to cover the cost of the clean up when the tenant leaves.
As a Landlord, I then will loose more income when the tenant leaves with no responsibility for the damage they will certainly have made. No responsibility for any damage will lead to ever more damage.
My response will therefore be obvious. I will charge a higher rent, and if people don't to rent at the increased price, then so be it.
A quick example: on a £2,000pcm rent will mean holding a deposit of £3,000. If that is not there, then I will be forced to put the monthly rent up to £2,250pcm to cover that loss just to stand still.
However, under those circumstance, at least I would be guaranteed to have repair monies available without having the hassle of a deposit holding company at the end pf a tenancy.
how much is the rent deposit guarantee insurance to cost and presumably tenant pays--will it cover deliberate damage?
All damage MUST be paid for by the tenant. From whatever source, but not mine.
Bla bla bla.
I don't understand that!
Why rent to someone who doesn't expect to leave the property as he found it and therefore get the full deposit back, no quibble?
So £1 million of deposits are "stolen" each year. What amount of unpaid rent or uncompensated damage is stolen from landlords each year?
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