First introduced on 7 March 2011, the Scottish Tenancy Deposit Schemes Regulations state that all landlords and letting agents in receipt of tenancy deposits must transfer the deposit to a government approved tenancy deposit protection (TDP) scheme within 30 working days of the tenancy start date. They also need to provide all tenants on the tenancy agreement with certain information, including which scheme holds the deposit and circumstances where any of the deposit might be kept at the end of the tenancy.
On 11 November 2019, several amendments to the original regulations were introduced. To help you stay fully informed, we’ve outlined the main amendments below. You can find the fully updated regulations here.
1) Exception introduced to landlord’s requirements to pay a deposit into a TDP scheme within 30 days:
Landlords have to pay deposits into a TDP scheme within 30 days but the latest amendments outline an exception; if a tenancy is terminated and the deposit returned to the tenant before the end of the 30-day period, the rule no longer applies.
2) Provision added to allow payment of deposits in instalments
Sometimes, landlords may want to allow tenants to pay the deposit for the tenancy in instalments rather than all at once. This can can be helpful in shared tenancies, for instance, where tenants have different move-in dates. Although this flexibility is now outlined in the regulations, it has been something we’ve allowed our clients to do for many years.
3) Tenancy Deposit Schemes must inform tenants of the sanctions that apply to landlords who haven’t paid a deposit into the scheme within the designated period
The scheme holding the deposit must now tell tenants about the sanctions that can be placed on landlords who may not have complied with the outlined requirements. We’ve therefore added a new information box to our deposit submission notifications, incremental deposit payment notifications, deposit repayment notifications and deposit repayment reminder notifications. Here’s what the information says:
4) Landlords must provide certain additional information to tenants upon receipt of each instalment of their deposit
From now on, when payment of each deposit instalment is made to a TDP scheme, landlords have to provide tenants with the information below, updated to reflect the fact that tenants can pay their deposits in instalments
