Warning from Residential Landlords Association

Deposits

The Residential Landlords Association has urged landlords whose agents use the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS) to check that their agents are what the TDS calls ‘regulated agents’. Letting agents who are not members of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) or the National Approved Letting Scheme (NALS) are no longer permitted to use the TDS. As it is ultimately the landlord who is responsible for tenancy deposit protection, it is important for landlords to check that if their agents are not members of these bodies they have made arrangements under either of the other two available schemes.

Neither of the other two schemes, an insurance based scheme run by Mydeposits and the custodial based scheme provided by the Deposit Protection Scheme, distinguish between agents who belong to a membership body and those who do not, so both are available to any letting agent (or landlord). Even if one of these schemes are used, however, it may still be advisable for a landlord to consider putting his own name to the protection.