A comparison website claims that over 1.5m tenants know their landlord has not placed their deposits into a government-backed deposit protection scheme. 

The startling figure comes from Comparethemarket which claims that despite the legal obligation for landlords to put deposits into schemes such as the DPS, many tenants say they know this has not been done. 

Meanwhile a fifth of tenants claim that they do not have a contract with their landlord, while a similar proportion claim to have had money taken from their deposit when leaving a property.

The research also suggests that some landlords can be slow to respond to renter requests, with almost one third reporting that they need to chase their landlord when a problem requires fixing. A further 12 per cent claim that they have to make repeated efforts before receiving a response. 

Almost one in 10 say that it can take between a fortnight and a month for an issue at their property to be resolved. 

The survey was conducted last month amongst 1,000 UK adult private tenants.