How long do a landlord’s obligations & liabilities last under the tenancy deposit scheme, ask Greville Healey & Jamie Sutherland
Late last year, in Tiensia v Vision Enterprises Limited [2010] EWCA Civ 1224, [2011] 1 All ER 1059, the Court of Appeal considered a landlord’s obligations and liabilities under the tenancy deposit scheme for assured shorthold tenancies introduced by ss 212-215 of the Housing Act 2004 (HA 2004). The majority held that the s 214 penalties bite only where the landlord has failed to comply with the initial requirements of a scheme or to provide prescribed information about the tenancy deposit and not where the landlord has failed to perform these obligations within 14 days. The substantive obligations and the time limits imposed by the Act are free-standing requirements and the penalties attach only to the former. So the penalties could be avoided where the landlord complied with the substantive obligations later than the time limits; but how much later? In Tiensia, it was held that the landlord could comply at any time up to the hearing of the tenant’s application for penalties
