Rental deposits now protected in Scotland – but tenants ignorant

Rental deposits are now protected in Scotland, as from yesterday – with the large majority of tenants completely unaware of the new requirement.

A survey showed that 63% do not know about tenancy deposit protection.

Three schemes, The Letting Protection Service Scotland, Safedeposits Scotland, and My|deposits Scotland, have now begun receiving deposits.

The legislation is retrospective, meaning that existing deposits where there are ongoing tenancies must be protected, alongside deposits for new tenancy agreements.

Unlike England and Wales, all three schemes in Scotland are ‘custodial’ – ie, physically accepting money. They are not allowed to protect it via insurance.

Landlords and letting agencies must also begin providing ‘prescribed’ information to tenants.

Landlords and agents can start voluntarily submitting deposits for protection now, but must be complicit by November.

It has been predicted that with the need to hand over deposits that were retrospective, some letting agents will go out of business.

It is also thought that large numbers of letting agents and private landlords in Scotland are unprepared for the dispute process, and in particular unprepared in terms of inventories.

Pinstripe Inventories says that ‘hundreds’ of agents and landlords have left themselves exposed to losing out in disputes.

The company says it has had a substantial increase in calls from letting agents concerned that their existing inventories are not robust enough.

Dominic Bargeton, managing director of Pinstripe Inventories, said: “Up to now, inventories have often been prepared in-house or by one-man bands. Many are not worth the paper they are written on.”