To improve standards all round within the private rented housing sector a newly created foundation will hand out grants of up to £20,000. The money will be granted to any charity that is able to provide education and training to better "standards of behaviour and practice" amongst tenants and landlords.

The TDS Charitable Foundation, the newly created body, will give grants to any type of project that works within their goal. The foundation itself is committed to providing training materials and education to agents, landlords and tenants.

Invitations to apply for the funding are now available for any projects to educate tenants about their true responsibilities and rights as well as to "remind" landlords of their commitments.

The foundation will launch three funding rounds throughout 2014 and 2015 and the board of trustees have set out, that for each round grants will be awarded up to the sum of £35,000. The highest grant that will be paid for any one bid will be £20,000.

The deadline for application for the first round is 30th June which will concentrate upon first time private renters and the ever increasing number of "accidental landlords" who are entering into the market, and need to be properly informed exactly what their obligations are to their tenants.

The private rented sector has now overtaken social housing numbers and stood at four million households in 2013. The lettings industry is still seen to be virtually unregulated.

Steve Harriott, chief executive of the Dispute Service and a trustee of the Foundation, said: "The TDS Charitable Foundation is providing a valuable new source of funding for organisations which are committed to better standards in private renting.

 

"At present anyone can enter the lettings industry without training or experience, exposing people to many risks; from bad service to substandard living conditions, to financial loss or worse. I look forward to receiving new and exciting proposals for making tenants aware of what they need to expect from their landlords and agents, and for ways to encourage landlords into training."

The grants will be provided from the Tenancy Deposit Scheme and is one of the three approved schemes that accepts and holds deposits from tenants that rent their homes from private landlords.
 
From 2007 the TDS began accepting deposits from tenants however since then, it has built up a "bank" of monies because it has been unable to return the deposited sums as some tenants could not be found.

 

There are many reasons why this has happened and a few examples are international students returning to their country, tenants deciding against entering into a dispute over a deposit or, just disappearing from the property.

The "bank" of money has now grown into a large amount of capital and The Deposit Scheme formed the TDS Charitable Foundation. Its sole intent is to distribute grants to organisations working to raise awareness of the rights and obligations of all parties in the private rented sector.