Since 1 May 2026, an unprotected deposit no longer kills anything. Before that date, a landlord who missed the 30-day protection deadline could not serve a valid Section 21 notice, which gave tenants a defensive weapon worth far more than the deposit itself. Section 21 has been abolished, so that weapon is gone. What remains is the Section 214 penalty claim in the county court, worth one to three times the deposit, and it now has to do all the work on its own. Generation Rent's 2025 research found that 18% of renters who wanted to challenge deductions could not, because the landlord had never protected the money in the first place. That is the group with the strongest claim and the least idea that they have one.
What actually changed on 1 May 2026
Every assured shorthold tenancy in England converted automatically to an assured periodic tenancy on that date. No fixed term, no end date, no Section 21. Landlords who want possession must use a Section 8 ground and prove it. Rent rises now run through the amended Section 13 procedure on Form 4A, which you can challenge at the First-tier Tribunal (we cover that in How to Challenge a London Rent Increase at the Tribunal).
Three consequences for your deposit, none of them obvious:
- Your tenancy may now run for years. The check-in inventory from 2023 becomes the only baseline for a check-out in 2030. Memory of the original condition fades, and so does the landlord's, which is where inflated claims come from.
- You control the exit date. A tenant can end an assured periodic tenancy with at least two months' written notice, expiring at the end of a rental period. mydeposits' guidance is clear that the notice must land on the last day of a rent period, typically the day before rent is due. Get the date wrong and the notice is likely invalid, which wrecks the cash-flow plan below.
- The deposit compliance check is now yours alone to run. Nobody is going to raise it in a possession defence, because there is no no-fault possession claim to defend.
Deposit protection duties themselves are unchanged. The deposit must sit in one of three government-authorised schemes and the prescribed information must reach you within 30 days of the landlord receiving the money.
Check the three schemes this week
There are three: the Deposit Protection Service, the Tenancy Deposit Scheme and mydeposits. Each runs a free online checker. Search all three, not just the one you think you were told about, and search using the exact property address plus your surname and the deposit amount. Tenancy Deposit Scheme figures reported by the NRLA put 4.7 million deposits under protection across England and Wales in 2024/25, so the systems are well used and the searches are quick.
Then check the paperwork, which is where more landlords fail. The prescribed information is not just a certificate. It must include the scheme's contact details, the deposit amount, the property address, the landlord's name and contact details, how the deposit can be recovered, and the scheme's dispute procedure. A certificate emailed without the rest of it is a breach on its own.
What to send your letting agent, by email, today:
"Please confirm in writing which scheme holds my deposit, the scheme reference number, and the date the deposit was received and the date it was protected. Please also re-send the prescribed information served at the start of the tenancy."
Note the two dates. The gap between them is the whole case.
The penalty claim, standing alone
Under Section 214 of the Housing Act 2004, if the deposit was not protected within 30 days, or the prescribed information was not served within 30 days, you apply to the county court. The court must order the deposit returned or protected, and it has discretion to award between one and three times the deposit as compensation, for each breach. The Deregulation Act 2015 explanatory notes confirm the same one to three times range.
Solicitors' commentary on how courts pitch the award is consistent: a minor slip, protection a few days late, tends to attract something in the region of one to one and a half times the deposit, with the multiplier rising with the landlord's experience and conduct. A professional portfolio landlord who never protected anything is at the top of the range.
Two points that make this worth doing now rather than at check-out. The claim survives the end of the tenancy, so a past tenancy that was never protected is still live. And the money is separate from the deposit itself, which must also come back.
On a London deposit of roughly £2,650, a two-times award is £5,300 on top of the returned deposit. That is not small money, and it is the reason to check the dates before you give notice, not after.
The caps: five weeks and six weeks
The Tenant Fees Act 2019 caps the tenancy deposit at five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000, and six weeks' rent where it is £50,000 or more. The maths is annual rent divided by 52, multiplied by five or six. The government's guidance for landlords and agents states plainly that there is no pet exemption and no exemption for a poor credit history.
The £50,000 line matters in London, because it is a monthly rent of about £4,167. Below that, six weeks is unlawful.
| Monthly rent | Annual rent | Lawful maximum deposit |
|---|---|---|
| £1,500 | £18,000 | £1,730 (five weeks) |
| £2,302 (ONS London average, June 2026) | £27,624 | £2,656 (five weeks) |
| £3,596 (ONS Kensington and Chelsea average, June 2026) | £43,152 | £4,149 (five weeks) |
| £4,500 | £54,000 | £6,231 (six weeks) |
Anything above the cap is a prohibited payment. You can recover the overpayment, and the local authority can impose a civil penalty of up to £5,000 for a first breach and up to £30,000 for a repeat within five years. The holding deposit is capped separately at one week's rent.
Also new since 1 May 2026: during a tenancy, any clause requiring more than one month's rent in advance is void. If an agent asks for six months up front because you are a freelancer, that is not a negotiation, it is unlawful.
Betterment and apportionment
These two words defeat most inflated claims, and adjudicators apply them as a matter of course.
Betterment means a landlord cannot end the tenancy in a better position than they started. If you damaged something that was already part-worn, you owe the residual value, not a new one. Oakwood Inventories notes that the principle runs through the published guidance of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, mydeposits, the Deposit Protection Service and Propertymark alike.
Apportionment means the cost is split according to what is genuinely your responsibility. A recent TDS adjudication reported by PropertyWire is the clean example: the landlord claimed £420 for damage to internal decoration, the adjudicator allowed for the age and expected lifespan of the decoration, decided full redecoration was not appropriate, and made a partial award only.
How to run the argument in an evidence pack:
- Give the item's age and its expected lifespan. Say what proportion of that life was already used before you moved in.
- Argue repair before replacement. TDS adjudicators told the NRLA that landlords frequently seek full replacement where a repair would be reasonable.
- Separate wear from damage. Worn carpet in a hallway after four years is wear. A cigarette burn is damage.
- Attack the baseline. The same TDS commentary notes that adjudicators often see landlord evidence that fails to establish the original condition clearly enough to justify the deduction. If the check-in inventory is thin, say so, because on the balance of probabilities the burden is on the person claiming.
Cleaning is the one to watch. TDS reports it appears in over half of all its dispute cases. A clause requiring "professional cleaning" as a blanket obligation is generally unenforceable as a prohibited payment under the Tenant Fees Act; the standard is return in the same condition as at check-in, fair wear and tear excepted. Worth re-reading your agreement with that in mind, and our guide to understanding tenancy agreements explains which clauses survive and which are decoration.
The odds are better than the anecdotes suggest. Data collated across the three schemes and reported by mydeposits shows tenants receive all or part of the deposit back in 90% of insurance-scheme cases and over 80% in the custodial scheme, while landlords are awarded 100% of what they claimed less than 20% of the time, and only 7% of the time in insurance-scheme disputes.
Evidence on a tenancy with no end date
Now that tenancies roll indefinitely, build the record as you go.
Photograph every room on the day you move in and again each January, with a newspaper or a phone clock in one shot. Keep the check-in inventory as a PDF in cloud storage, not in an email account tied to an old employer. Log every reported repair in writing, with dates, because a damp patch you reported in year two is the landlord's problem, not your deduction in year seven. Ask the agent, in writing, for a mid-tenancy condition report if they propose an inspection; their own notes become your evidence.
Funding the next deposit while this one is still held
Here is the squeeze. The ONS Price Index of Private Rents puts the average monthly rent in London at £2,302 in June 2026, the highest of any UK region. Five weeks of that is about £2,656. To move, you typically need the new deposit plus a month's rent in advance, roughly £4,958, while your existing £2,656 sits in a scheme you cannot touch.
Deposits are not passported between tenancies in England. The Commons Library briefing on deposit schemes notes deposits should be returned within 10 days of the tenant requesting it in the insured scheme, or within 10 days of landlord and tenant agreeing deductions in the custodial scheme. That is only if you agree. If you dispute, mydeposits reported an average resolution time of 55 days in July 2025, 41 days for assessment and 14 for adjudication.
So plan backwards:
| When | Action |
|---|---|
| Week 0 | Check all three schemes. Confirm protection date and prescribed information. |
| Week 1 | Email the agent asking for the check-in inventory and their check-out standard in writing. |
| Week 2 | Serve two months' notice, dated to expire on the last day of a rent period. |
| Week 4 to 6 | View and secure the new flat. Pay the holding deposit (one week's rent maximum). |
| Two weeks before the end | Request an accompanied check-out. Photograph everything again after the last box leaves. |
| Day of exit | Submit meter readings, request the deposit in writing the same day. |
Two practical moves. Ask the new agent to set the tenancy start date a week or so after your old one ends, so the two deposits overlap for days rather than months; a week of double rent is cheaper than a bridging loan. And if the deduction dispute drags into adjudication, accept the undisputed portion immediately. The schemes ring-fence only the amount actually in dispute, so the rest can be released while the argument runs.
If the deposit was never protected, the calculation changes completely. A one to three times award will fund several moves, and the claim does not expire when you hand back the keys.