Tenancy deposit protection was introduced in order to help safeguard your deposit and help ensure that you get it back at the end of the tenancy, provided you have met the terms of your Tenancy Agreement.

1. You hand over the deposit

At the start of the tenancy you hand your deposit to your landlord/agent as normal.

2. Your landlord or agent must protect it

Your landlord/agent has 30 days to protect it with a government authorised scheme such as mydeposits. We offer your landlord/agent a choice of how they protect the deposit with us, either:

• They keep hold of the deposit during the tenancy, paying mydeposits a fee to protect it.

or

• They transfer your deposit to us to safeguard throughout the tenancy duration.

3. Your protection is confirmed

To fully comply, your landlord/agent must also send you proof of the protection (called the Prescribed Information) within the same 30 days of receiving the deposit.

4. End of tenancy

Depending on how your deposit is protected, at the end of the tenancy either your landlord or agent will hand the deposit back to your directly or you will be contacted by mydeposits to authorise the release of the deposit. Read more about getting your deposit back here.

If your landlord is proposed deductions to the deposit and you are unable to agree then we provide a free and impartial dispute resolution service to help resolve the matter fairly.

Find out more about deposit disputes here.