10th
Nov 2019
Landlords and agents are being heavily criticised by a trade body for the time they take to hand back a tenant's deposit as “unbelievable”.
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The Ministry of Housing's latest statistics shows that irrespective of whether a deposit is due to a landlord or tenant, the average timescale for the payback is between 29 - 37 days.
It seems that the government's latest tenancy reforms in housing law to help protect tenants and their deposits, has had little impact whatsoever.
Danny Zane head of the trade body states that many tenants will be unable to move because of the delayed return of deposits.
He says: “It’s quite unbelievable that with the amazing deposit protection & dispute services and new reforms in place it is still taking so long for all parties to be financially satisfied.
“We strongly believe that aside from the many benefits of a solid, unbiased and third party report, making sure an inventory report is in place at the start and then the finish of the tenancy will dramatically reduce deposit return times.
“Deposit return times being as long as 37 days for a tenant to get their money back is crippling for many. This makes life very difficult for many millions of tenants and their families in a day and age where we are set on improving life for tenants.”
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and local Government has been considering systems to improve the tenancy deposit returns process that includes tenancy passporting, this where landlords are able to transfer deposits between each other, which as of yet has not been introduced.
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