Lease – Deposit – Possession proceedings – Claimant landlord failing to provide prescribed information relating to authorised insured scheme operated by dispute service – Whether defendant tenant entitled to deposit refund – Whether claimant liable to make penalty payment – Appeal allowed
In June 2007, the defendant entered into an assured shorthold tenancy with the claimant. He paid a £525 deposit to the claimant via her agent, pursuant to the tenancy deposit scheme contained in section 212 and the following provisions of the Housing Act 2004. That deposit was lodged in a tenancy deposit, being the insured scheme operated by the dispute service TDS, on behalf of the claimant within 14 days of the beginning of the tenancy.
The claimant subsequently issued proceedings for possession of the property on the basis that substantial arrears of rent had accrued because the defendant had not made payments towards the rent since October 2007.
The district judge found in favour of the defendant and ordered the claimant to refund the deposit, pursuant to section 214(3)(b) of the 2004 Act, and pay £1,575 (three times the deposit) by way of penalty pursuant to section 214(4). The claimant appealed. She accepted that she had failed to provide the prescribed information relating to the authorised scheme applying to the deposit referred to in section 213(5) and (6) of the 2004 Act within the required 14-day period. However, she claimed that the judge had been wrong to order the repayment of the deposit and a penalty since the information had subsequently been given in writing.
Held: The appeal was allowed.
The claimant’s failure was not that “the prescribed information had not been given” but that it had not been given within 14 days. The district judge had erred in law in taking the view that section 213(6)(a) and (b) were so closely connected that they made sense only if they were read together. Those provisions contained serious powers to be exercised against a landlord, and the draftsman, in dealing with proceedings relating to tenancy deposits in section 214, had differentiated between the requirement of providing the information and doing so within a reasonable time.
In the instant case the information had been given out of time, but it had been given, and before the formal application envisaged by section 214 had been made on the defendant’s behalf.
Richard Jones (from the Residential Landlords Association) appeared for the claimant; the defendant did not appear and was not represented.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
