Does my landlord have to pay me interest on my deposit?

[Sushifiend]

Sold a house but didn't have a new one to move to yet, so rented a house for 20 months. Paid the landlord £4200 as a deposit, which I understand he has to keep safe under some sort of scheme. Now it's time for him to pay my deposit back and I enquired about the interest on my money. He says it's only £2 something, which doesn't sound right after 20 months.

So my question is this. Does the landlord have to pay me my interest earned on the deposit (still my money after all), and doesn't he have to make sure the money is kept in an account that will pay at least an average amount of interest? In other words, if he chooses to put it in an account earning no interest whatsoever, am I not still entitled to the interest I would have earned had I kept it in a savings account? I didn't mismanage the money - he did. Thanks in advance for any replies, whether they are encouraging or not!

[nyt]

The money is usually lodged with an organisation such as:http://www.depositprotection.com

They hold the money but they pay no interest.

I think that they fund themselves on the interest earned from the deposit.

[Butter Face]

From my understanding, no.

He's either handed the money over on a custodian scheme and they keep the interest, or he's paid a fee for insurance backed scheme and he gets any interest.

[Sharted]

As my old Dad would have said:

'Too late, too late cried the man at the gate'

I'm sure that's really useful to you.

[barryrs]

A look online suggests the custodial scheme pays 2.32% below the BOE base rate so I'd say you owe your landlord

[AndrewEH1]

You should take him to Small Claims Court, he was so reckless with your money!











Or not...

[andy-xr]

The idea is that your landlord puts it into a protected scheme so that he cant spend or invest it and lose it. Those schemes can have a repayment back to the landlord (not all do), but not to you.

The deposit you gave the landlord isnt an investment, it's insurance against you stting on the floor and them being stuck with a bill for cleaning it.

[Rick101]

I always find it quite bizarre that somebody who would have these sort of funds, has these sort of problems.

[Some Gump]

Rick101 said:

I always find it quite bizarre that somebody who would have these sort of funds, has these sort of problems.

4 grand? I'd hope that most households have 4 grand. Rainy day and all that?

[TheForceV4]

Some Gump said:

4 grand? I'd hope that most households have 4 grand. Rainy day and all that?

I wish. When it rains i'm definitely going to get wet....

[spats]

TheForceV4 said:

Some Gump said:

4 grand? I'd hope that most households have 4 grand. Rainy day and all that?

I wish. When it rains i'm definitely going to get wet....

Same here. 4K is more than Ive spent on a single purchase ever!

[BoRED S2upid]

What a strange question. The answer is no he's not HSBC! Even if you gave it to them the answer would still pretty much be no.

[Rick101]

Some Gump said:

4 grand? I'd hope that most households have 4 grand. Rainy day and all that?

4 grand for a rental deposit?

Regardless, if you think most households have 4 grand you are living in cloud cuckoo land. I'd prob put it closer to £400.

[andy-xr]

Rick101 said:

4 grand for a rental deposit?

Regardless, if you think most households have 4 grand you are living in cloud cuckoo land. I'd prob put it closer to £400.

More like it. I think in many cases people are only really a couple of empty payruns of it all going south. While I'm sure many on here will point, laugh and go back to counting their billions, for a lot of people the actual ability to save is fairly limited

Having said that, a £4k deposit on a £2k pcm rental isnt completely out of the question

[MW-M5]

andy-xr said:

More like it. I think in many cases people are only really a couple of empty payruns of it all going south. While I'm sure many on here will point, laugh and go back to counting their billions, for a lot of people the actual ability to save is fairly limited

Having said that, a £4k deposit on a £2k pcm rental isnt completely out of the question

It's quite scary really. We definitely need to be teaching financial education in schools.

[Sushifiend]

The rental was £2800 per month. £4200 as a deposit didn't seem unreasonable to me.

Thanks for all the replies - If that's the way it is then I'm more than happy to take my deposit back and let the landlord keep his couple of quid interest. He's actually got a few rental properties and was pretty sketchy on how he'd keep the deposit safe. He said he'd registered with the deposit scheme but I had understood that they don't actually hold the funds. I'm almost 100% certain he didn't lodge it with any deposit scheme - he just set up a separate savings account.

Edited by Sushifiend on Friday 20th November 19:49

[gazapc]

My understanding is that if the landlord has not secured the deposit in an approved scheme then he is being quite naughty and could infact end up paying you compensation for upto 3x the deposit amount. On £4+k that is quite some amount so could be worth persuing if the landlord has not complied with his legal responsibilities.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/tenancy_d...
https://www.gov.uk/tenancy-deposit-protection/if-y...
http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/tenancy_d...

A search on moneysavingexpert will also throw up many cases of this with some advice on how to proceed.

Me, even if the money was apparently 'safe' in an seperate account I would not at all be happy with the landlord not complying with the requirements.

Edited by gazapc on Friday 20th November 21:19

Edited by gazapc on Friday 20th November 21:21

[nyt]

Sushifiend said:

I'm almost 100% certain he didn't lodge it with any deposit scheme - he just set up a separate savings account.

Edited by Sushifiend on Friday 20th November 19:49

You should have received at least an email from the deposit agency.
In order to get the deposit back you need to lodge a request which your landlord then approves.

If a scheme wasn't set up within a few weeks of the start of the tenancy then the landlord is liable to quite significant penalties.
I guess there's no real foul if he returns it all but quite a bit of leverage on your part if he tries to withhold anything.

He is taking big risks for little benefit if he didn't set up a scheme.
If you let via an agent they should have made sure that a deposit scheme was set up.

[BoRED S2upid]

Sushifiend said:

The rental was £2800 per month. £4200 as a deposit didn't seem unreasonable to me.

Thanks for all the replies - If that's the way it is then I'm more than happy to take my deposit back and let the landlord keep his couple of quid interest. He's actually got a few rental properties and was pretty sketchy on how he'd keep the deposit safe. He said he'd registered with the deposit scheme but I had understood that they don't actually hold the funds. I'm almost 100% certain he didn't lodge it with any deposit scheme - he just set up a separate savings account.

Edited by Sushifiend on Friday 20th November 19:49

That is steep for a deposit it's never more than one month for me.

Deposit protection can be lodged but they don't have to hold any money they simply act as a mediator if the landlord tries to screw you for a new carpet.

Let him keep a few quid interest get your deposit back and move on.

[Sushifiend]

nyt said:

Sushifiend said:

I'm almost 100% certain he didn't lodge it with any deposit scheme - he just set up a separate savings account.

Edited by Sushifiend on Friday 20th November 19:49

You should have received at least an email from the deposit agency.
In order to get the deposit back you need to lodge a request which your landlord then approves.

If a scheme wasn't set up within a few weeks of the start of the tenancy then the landlord is liable to quite significant penalties.
I guess there's no real foul if he returns it all but quite a bit of leverage on your part if he tries to withhold anything.

He is taking big risks for little benefit if he didn't set up a scheme.
If you let via an agent they should have made sure that a deposit scheme was set up.

There was no email from the deposit scheme, and I'm sure he didn't register with one. I didn't let via an agent - he advertised it privately on Gumtree and he's actually someone known to me - I went to school with one of his sons years ago. I have no intention of causing trouble for him as long as he returns the deposit in full which he has already agreed to.