Deposit Not Protected? What Happens, and Whether a Landlord Can Fix It Late

Under section 213 of the Housing Act 2004, a landlord must protect a tenancy deposit and serve the prescribed information within 30 days. Missing either exposes the landlord to a court award of one to three times the deposit and, since 1 May 2026, blocks possession orders on every ground except 7A and 14 until put right.

This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Landlords should seek independent legal advice for their specific circumstances. It describes the position in England.

What does the law require within 30 days?

Section 213 of the Housing Act 2004 sets two separate duties, and the 30 day clock for each starts on the day the landlord receives the deposit, not the day the tenancy begins. Since 1 May 2026 the duties apply to almost every private assured tenancy in England, not only assured shorthold tenancies, following the amendments made by section 26 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025.

Prescribed information, meaning the details listed in article 2 of the Housing (Tenancy Deposits) (Prescribed Information) Order 2007, includes the scheme's contact details and leaflet, the deposit amount, the property address, when deductions can be made, and a certificate signed by the landlord. It must go to the tenant and to any "relevant person", such as a parent who paid the deposit for the tenant.

The three authorised schemes are the Deposit Protection Service, mydeposits and the Tenancy Deposit Scheme. How each one works is covered in our tenancy deposit protection guide.

What happens if a deposit is not protected?

Three separate consequences follow, and each has a different fix. Landlords who treat them as one problem tend to fix the wrong one.

How much can a tenant claim for an unprotected deposit?

Where the 30 day duties were not met, section 214(4) of the Housing Act 2004 provides that the court must order the landlord to pay the tenant not less than the deposit and not more than three times the deposit. The court will also order the deposit itself to be repaid or paid into a custodial scheme, or, where the tenancy has ended, may order it to be repaid.

Where the award falls within that range is for the court, and it depends on the specific facts. Courts have generally looked at how serious the failure was and how it came about. In Ayannuga v Swindells [2012] EWCA Civ 1789, prescribed information that omitted several required items was held not to be substantially to the same effect as the prescribed form. That case was decided under the earlier rule, which fixed the award at three times the deposit; the one to three times range has applied since April 2012.

Three points widen the exposure:

• A former tenant can bring the claim after the tenancy has ended, under section 214(1A).
• Where a deposit ran across successive tenancies, county courts have in some cases awarded a separate sum for each tenancy. There is no binding appeal court authority on this.
• The High Court has treated the limitation period as six years under section 9 of the Limitation Act 1980. When that period starts to run has not been settled.

GOV.UK guidance states that tenants bring these claims in the county court on form N208.

Worked example. On a rent of £1,200 a month, the maximum deposit is £1,384.61, five weeks' rent under the Tenant Fees Act 2019. If that deposit was never protected, the court must award the tenant between £1,384.61 and £4,153.83, and will also deal with the deposit itself. If county courts treat a second tenancy as a separate failure, the exposure can be higher.

How did the Renters' Rights Act change the possession bar?

Before 1 May 2026, an unprotected deposit mainly stopped a landlord serving a section 21 notice. Section 26(5) of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 replaced section 215 of the Housing Act 2004, so the bar now sits on the court's power to make a possession order at all.

The only exceptions are Ground 7A and Ground 14, the antisocial behaviour grounds. Every other ground is caught, including the rent arrears grounds 8, 10 and 11. A landlord with three months of arrears and an unprotected deposit cannot obtain a possession order on Ground 8 until the deposit position is put right.

The test applies when the court makes the order, not when the notice is served. That leaves room to correct the position between serving a Form 3A notice and the hearing, provided the landlord checks before the hearing date rather than at it.

Can a landlord protect a deposit late?

Yes, and for possession purposes it works. Section 215(2) treats the scheme's initial requirements as met "whether or not" they were completed within 30 days, and section 215(3) does not require the prescribed information to have been given on time. Late protection with prescribed information served lifts the possession bar.

Late protection does not cancel the section 214 claim. The award is triggered by missing the 30 day deadlines, and protecting the deposit afterwards does not undo that. Whether a scheme will accept a deposit after the 30 day window is a matter for each scheme, so landlords are advised to confirm with the scheme directly.

Section 215(5)(b) only applies once the tenant has actually applied to the county court. A settlement agreed before any court application does not by itself lift the possession bar, so a landlord settling early will usually still need to protect the deposit late or return it. The wording of any settlement matters, so legal advice is recommended before relying on one.

Do existing tenancies need the deposit protecting again after 1 May 2026?

On the enacted wording, existing tenancies continued as periodic assured tenancies on 1 May 2026 under section 146(1) of the Renters' Rights Act 2025, so no new tenancy arose and the deposit was not received afresh. On that reading, a deposit already properly protected does not need protecting again.

No court has ruled on this yet. The older case law on statutory periodic tenancies, including Superstrike Ltd v Rodrigues[2013] EWCA Civ 669, shows how a technical point about renewals can catch landlords out. Section 215B, as amended, treats protection and prescribed information as complied with for a replacement tenancy between the same parties where the deposit stays in the same scheme. Serving the prescribed information again is a low cost precaution that some landlords choose to take.

The Supreme Court is due to hear an appeal on what counts as adequate prescribed information on 3 November 2026 (UKSC 2025/0143). The test may change once it gives judgment, and this article will be updated when it does.

What should a landlord do on finding an unprotected deposit?

1. Establish the dates: when the deposit was received, when it was protected (if ever), and when the prescribed information was served, and on whom.
2. Contact the scheme about late protection, or consider returning the deposit.
3. Serve the prescribed information on every tenant and every relevant person, and keep evidence that each one received it.
4. Hold off on possession proceedings until the bar is lifted.
5. Take legal advice on settling the section 214 exposure.
6. Keep the certificate, prescribed information, service evidence and correspondence for at least six years. Our record retention table sets out the wider retention periods.

Learning the deposit rules properly: the LLCR Academy course

LLCR Academy, the training arm of LLCR (Landlord Compliance Register), publishes Tenancy Deposit Compliance for Landlords (England), a course built around the exact problems in this article. It is available now on Udemy: eight video lessons running about 60 minutes in total, printable checklists, a final assessment with a 75% pass mark, and a certificate of completion. The law in the course was last reviewed in September 2026.

The lessons follow the questions above:

The course covers England only. Every legal point is mapped to legislation or official guidance, and each lesson takes on a myth landlords still repeat, such as the belief that non-protection does not affect Section 8. It is general training rather than legal advice, and it is not currently CPD accredited. You can enrol on Udemy or browse the full LLCR Academy catalogue.

Keeping the deposit record in one place

The course teaches what to keep; the LLCR platform is designed to keep it. Each property's record holds the deposit protection certificate, the prescribed information and a dated proof of service entry showing what was served, on whom and when. If a hearing date arrives, the Compliance Defence Pack gathers that evidence into a single bundle. LLCR is free for one property.

Not sure whether every deposit you hold is protected and served correctly? The free LLCR compliance checker takes a few minutes, and the LLCR Academy deposit course walks through the fix lesson by lesson.