VetMyLandlord England · free check

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Was your deposit protected properly?

Within 30 days of taking your deposit your landlord had two duties: put the money in a government scheme, and send you the prescribed information about it. Miss either and section 214(4) of the Housing Act 2004 says a court must order your landlord to pay you one to three times the deposit. Most people only ever check the first duty.

The address is optional. It is used for the second half of the check, where some councils license street by street and a postcode alone cannot name a street.

Works for a home you rent now or rented before, anywhere in England.

The free route, said plainly.

You can check whether the money is protected yourself, for nothing, on the three schemes' own tenant tools. We link them below and we would rather you used them. What no scheme search can tell you is whether the prescribed information was ever served, because no database holds that. That is the duty landlords actually breach, and it is the reason this is a set of questions rather than a lookup.

We do not sell a deposit pack. Deposit claims go to the county court and the schemes run their own free adjudicators.

No lookup, no data sharing
We never send your name to a scheme Both duties
Including the one searches miss Then the bigger one
Licensing, on the same answers

England only, for now

Get told if this changes. One email, no spam.

Did you pay a deposit for this tenancy?

A holding deposit that was returned or put towards the rent does not count. We mean the security deposit held against damage and unpaid rent.

When did you live there?

The deposit clock runs six years from when the money was taken, so old tenancies very often still count.

What was the rent?

We have guessed from your deposit. Please correct it: the guess is only arithmetic, and this figure decides the second half of the check.

The whole property's rent, not just your share. Leave blank if you would rather not say.

Within 30 days of paying it, what did you receive?

This is the question that decides it, and the one no search can answer. Take a second over it. If you genuinely cannot remember, say so, that is a real answer and we will tell you how to settle it.

Include yourself. Family and couples go together in one group; each flatmate or friend gets their own group. It is how the rules decide which scheme covers your home.

It changes who the money would belong to, so it changes the figure rather than decorating it.

Or stop here. We will email you the deposit answer above, with the scheme links and what to do next, and nothing else.

How do I check if my deposit is protected?

Search your own details on each of the three government-approved schemes, because only one of them will hold it and none of them can see the other two. It is free and takes about two minutes:

What that search cannot tell you is whether your landlord also sent you the prescribed information, which is a separate legal duty and a separate claim. That is why the check at the top of this page asks you rather than looking anything up.

What happens if my landlord did not protect my deposit within 30 days?

The county court must order your landlord to pay you between one and three times the deposit, and must order the deposit itself to be returned to you or protected. Section 214(4) of the Housing Act 2004 ↗ puts it as a duty on the court, so the discretion is over the multiple and not over whether to award at all. The 30 days runs from the day the deposit was received, not from the day the tenancy started, and section 213 ↗ is where both duties are set out.

What is the prescribed information, and why does it matter more than people think?

It is the paperwork your landlord must give you within 30 days telling you which scheme holds the deposit, how to get it back at the end, and what to do if you disagree about deductions. It is required by section 213(5) and (6), and it is a duty entirely separate from protecting the money.

This is the one that is actually breached. A landlord can lodge the deposit perfectly and never serve the paperwork, in which case every scheme search in the world says protected and the claim is still sitting there. No database holds it. Only you know what arrived, which is the whole reason a deposit checker has to be a set of questions.

Can I still claim if my landlord protected the deposit late?

Yes. Protecting the deposit after the 30 days has run does not undo the breach, and courts have made awards where the money was lodged late, or lodged only once the tenant complained. The same goes for prescribed information served late. If your landlord protected it the moment you asked a question about it, the date on the scheme's own certificate is worth keeping.

How long do I have to claim for an unprotected deposit?

Generally six years, because a deposit penalty is a statutory debt rather than a housing claim with its own short deadline. That is far longer than the one to two years a rent repayment order allows, and it is the single most useful thing on this page: a tenant whose licensing claim is out of time can very often still bring the deposit one. Where a deposit was never returned the period can run differently, and that is worth an hour of a solicitor's time rather than ours.

Can I claim after I have already moved out?

Yes. The claim survives the end of the tenancy, and most people who bring one have already moved out. What matters is when the deposit was taken and what happened in the 30 days after it, not whether you still have the keys.

How much compensation do you get for an unprotected deposit?

Between one and three times the deposit, plus the deposit itself back. On a £1,200 deposit that is an order of somewhere between £1,200 and £3,600. The court picks the multiple on the facts, weighing how serious the breach was and how the landlord has behaved, so nobody can honestly tell you the figure in advance and you should be careful of anyone who does.

My deposit was handled properly. Does that mean my landlord did everything right?

Not necessarily, and the other duty is usually worth a great deal more. Many councils require landlords to hold a property licence, and a landlord who let a home without one can be ordered to repay up to 24 months of rent through a rent repayment order at the First-tier Tribunal. It is a different law, a different tribunal and a much shorter deadline, and it is checked from the property's address rather than from your paperwork. That is the second half of the check at the top of this page, and it is the one we prepare documents for.

What do you actually sell?

Nothing on the deposit side. Deposit claims go through the county court and the schemes' own free adjudicators, and our documents are built for the housing tribunal, so selling you deposit paperwork would be selling you the wrong thing. Where the licensing half of this check finds a claim, we sell one pack at one flat price that prepares it. Everything above is free whether you buy anything or not.