deposit protection
How long do I have to protect a tenancy deposit?
Thirty days from the day you receive the money. Within the same 30 days the tenant must also be given the prescribed information — which scheme holds it, how to get it back, and how a dispute is settled. Both halves are one deadline, and it is the one deadline on a landlord's list that cannot be put right afterwards.
- deadline
- 30 days from receiving the deposit
- where
- a government-approved protection scheme
- also within 30 days
- the prescribed information
- deposit cap
- 5 weeks' rent under £50,000 a year
- one-off
- per tenancy, not annual
Why it is different
Every other date on this list renews. This one happens once per tenancy and then it is either done or permanently late. Protecting the deposit in month two does not undo a missed 30 days.
The tenant can bring a claim years later, and the passage of time does not help the landlord. So the only version of this that works is doing it in the first week.
At a new tenancy
A new tenancy with the same tenant can need the information served again, depending on how the paperwork was written. If a tenancy has been renewed since the deposit was taken, check what the scheme holds.
The How to Rent guide belongs to the same moment: the current version, given at the start of each new tenancy.
if it lapses
1 to 3 times the deposit
A court can order the deposit returned and compensation of between one and three times its value. On a five-week deposit that is a four-figure order, arising from a date in a diary rather than from anything wrong with the property.
Written by OriginAI and kept current as the rules move. Last reviewed 5 September 2026. It sets out the dates as we read them and is not legal advice.