New landlord here - Not found tenant yet but need to know the best deposit protection shceme to use for when they pay me the deposit money. I know the ‘prescibed information’ stuff - just want to know what everyone thinks the best scheme is for being able to get money back for damage and cleaning at the end? Also how common is it to have to take money off? I assume a small amount each tenancy is normal?
Do you mean custodial vs insured? otherwise the schemes are all pretty much the same
DPS is the biggest so most trustworthy but all are run by the governmnet.
Yeah they all work in a similar way and offer both Custodial and Insured scheme’s (ie you can keep the money or they do).
Best to have a look at the website if you want to know about when you can make deductions from the deposit.
Cheers,
Graham
Hi @Landlady_Dani @ingrid @Graham_B
Yes - I meant the actual deposit schemes themselves as opposed to insured vs custodial. Have learned a lot since my first post! And ednded up with DPS because the online interface looked easy to use for tenants at the end of the tenancy.
Yes after learning more I feel like it doesn’t really matter at all!
Still hoping for answers to how common deductions are, if anyone can help please?
Hi @Accidental_Landlord - small deductions are very common. It’s pretty usual for the tenants to cause some damage over the course of a year or two.
The TDS releases data on this, and the most common reason for deductions is actually… cleaning!
But to do make deductions for this, I’d recommend including a clause in your tenancy agreement making it clear that tenants must return the property in a condition of being cleaned to a professional standard.
Less than 1% of TDS deposits ended in dispute. Trying to find the average deduction value… stay tuned.