| Tenancy Deposit Schemes and the Deregulation Act 2015
On 26 March 2015 the Deregulation Bill became the Deregulation Act 2015 and with it came a broad variety of changes to the law across various disciplines and sectors.
Helpfully for landlords, the changes will assist them in instances where they wish to evict tenants under assured shorthold tenancies using s.21 notices.
At the end of the fixed term of an AST, the tenancy automatically becomes a statutory periodic tenancy. The Court of Appeal, in the case of Superstrike Ltd v Rodrigues [2013], decided that where contractual tenancies become statutory, the landlord (where he wishes to obtain possession of the property) must first return the deposit to the tenant before serving said tenant with a s.21 notice.
Pursuant to the provisions of the new Deregulation Act, “all or part of the deposit paid in connection with the fixed term tenancy continues to be held in connection with the periodic tenancy”.
This leaves one hoop fewer for landlords to jump through – Deposits protected at the outset of a fixed tenancy will remain protected for the duration of the remaining tenancy itself, including the period when it becomes statutory.
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