Nearly 50% of tenants outright winners with Mydeposits

Disputes about tenancy deposits are raised almost equally by both sides: 48% of disputes are raised by landlords or their agents, and 51% by tenants.

But tenants stand a better chance of winning all of their deposits back, and if they were to insist on their landlord using MyDeposits, they would stand an almost 50% chance.

The finding comes in an evaluation of compulsory tenancy deposit protection five years after it became law in England and Wales.

Written by Steve Harriott, chief executive of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, the evaluation report highlights the difference in awards made by the three different schemes following dispute resolution. In the year to March, there were a total of 20,279 disputes.

The evaluation shows that there are marked differences between the proportions awarded across the three deposit protection schemes in the last five years, despite the fact that all three schemes apparently operate very similar adjudication processes.

A landlord seems most likely to win 100% of the deposit with the TDS, a little less so with the Deposit Protection Service, and be very unlikely to win it with MyDeposits. From a tenant’s perspective, the easy win is MyDeposits, followed closely by DPS, with TDS a long way behind.

However, in all three schemes, the tenant is more likely to be awarded the full deposit than the landlord, and the majority of disputes end up in awards being split.

The figures are: with the TDS, tenants get the full disputed deposit in 22.84% of cases, whereas landlords are awarded it in 19.22% of cases. A total of 57.94% of disputes end in a split award.

With the DPS, 19.1% of disputes are found in favour of the landlord, and 41.5% in favour of the tenant. A total of 39.4% of cases lead to a split award.

With MyDeposits, 48.48% of awards were made in full to the tenant and just 7.81% to the landlord. A total of 43.7% of cases ended in split awards.

The disparate sets of figures are due to be scrutinised shortly, with the two insurance-backed schemes, TDS and Mydeposits, spun off from the National Landlords Association, next month due to re-tender for new five-year contracts.