FAQs: Deposit breakdowns

The differences in outgoing costs between traditional deposits and zero-deposit schemes are actually very little! For Reposit you pay one week’s rent to Reposit who act to insure your deposit. This is non-refundable. You then pay the first months’ rent within 15 days as security for the landlord leading up to the tenancy. This is the case with all zero-deposit schemes. For a traditional deposit, you would pay a holding deposit. You then pay 5 weeks’ rent within 15 days for the rest of the deposit, minus the holding deposit you’d already paid. The first month’s rent would then be paid 7 days before the beginning of the tenancy. After this, the differences are minimal until the end of the tenancy. With a traditional deposit, we will send you a breakdown of any deductions within a month of your tenancy end date and then once agreed, will return the balance of the funds to you. With Reposit, we will submit any end of tenancy charges onto their platform with 24 days of the end of your tenancy, you will be notified of these by Reposit and once agreed, you will pay this money to Reposit.

We always hope that we will be able to find a middle ground, where you are happy. However, if you do not agree with the deductions you have the right to dispute your deposit through MyDeposits. MyDeposits do ask that you have attempted to resolve the disagreement (e.g. you have told us you are not happy and asked us to clarify anything) before taking it to dispute. Please note the dispute process is the first step and will be judged by an independent claims official. Small claims courts will direct you to MyDeposits dispute service in the first instance. If you would like to raise a dispute, you can do so on the MyDeposits website www.mydeposits.co.uk.

Yes of course! If you are happy with the breakdown, please feel free to email us straight back to let us know and we can return this to you at the next available opportunity.

We will give you 48 hours to initially respond to the breakdown. Please note, we will not return the deposit before this time period has passed. Once the 48 hours have passed, if we have not heard from you regarding this, we will return the deposit to you as soon as we can providing all tenants have completed the ‘Deposit return form.’ Please contact us if the deposit is not in your account after this time period and we will look into why this is.

Most tenancy agreements are joint and severally liable. This means the deposit is one payment and all deductions will be made from the deposit as a whole. We will send a breakdown of deductions detailing any charges on a room by room basis where we can, to help you divide up the balance. If one tenants ‘share’ of damages is more than their portion of deposit, it will be up to yourselves as tenants to reclaim the money off them if you wish.

Please do bear with us, this is an incredibly busy time. We have nearly 500 properties moving in and out in a very short space of time. The deposits are handled in order of move out date and we will respond to each of you. We aim to respond within 3 working days to each email, however please do bear with us, this could take longer depending on the number of queries you have.

No problem! Just reply to let us know, we will then put this on hold until we hear from you and we’ll look after your deposit until the issue is resolved.

Unfortunately, we are not able to get involved in internal disputes such as issues with bills, nor are we able to deduct these from the deposit. We do suggest that tenants take our bills-included package to avoid any issues with bills at the end of the tenancy.

Most tenancy agreements are joint and severally liable. This means the deposit is classed as one joint deposit. Although we allowed you to pay your shares of this individually, we are unable to send individual portions of deposits back. Any communal damage is down to you as tenants to resolve and to allocate costs depending on who caused that damage. The full breakdown will be provided for you to discuss amongst yourselves and the full cost of repairs deducted from your joint deposit. The only exceptions to this are if only one tenant is moving out or if you are on your own separate tenancy agreement. Then of course, the one tenant will have their share of the deposit returned to them.

The inventories were checked by yourselves to confirm that everything listed in them is correct. You had 7 days at the start of the tenancy to notify us of any discrepancies in the document otherwise it is deemed to be an accurate representation of how you received the property. Unfortunately, if there is no evidence that the damage existed at the start of your tenancy, it will be chargeable to yourselves. If you have any queries, do let us know and we will be happy to discuss this with you.

If a minority of tenants return their keys at the end of their tenancy, we will normally need to change the locks to ensure the next tenants’ safety. Whilst we do understand that it is normal for tenants to lose their keys, we can only be sure that no third party has unauthorised access to the property if we change the lock.

If an item is listed in the inventory but missing from the check-out report, the landlord has every right to charge the cost towards replacing the item although they do not actually have to replace it, as it is an asset they have lost.

Unfortunately not. You are allowed access to the property (either yourself or via a third-party) during the dates of your tenancy. After you have vacated the property, any access or works need to be arranged by the Landlord or Coapt.

We always look for the most economical option when remedying any dilapidations. As cleaning is cheaper than replacing a mattress, we will try this in the first instance. Unfortunately, sometimes stains won’t come out and the mattress may need to be replaced after it has been cleaned. If it is excessively stained and beyond cleaning, we will arrange for a replacement and not attempt to clean it.

We recommend at the start of tenancies that mattress protectors are used to avoid these issues.

Our Deposit Return team have been on various deposit courses run by My Deposits adjudicators so that they can fairly apportion cost depending on the damage caused. This includes cigarette burns, iron burns and marked furniture etc.

Like all contractor charges, there is an element of labour involved. Not only to fit the light bulb but to make the trip to buy the bulb needed. To avoid this cost for labour, it is advised that you always replace all non-working bulbs prior to your check-out.

Lightbulbs can stop working at any time. Unfortunately, we do have instances where lightbulbs that were working one day, are not working the next day. The condition of the property is relayed at the official check-out, so any bulbs that are not working at this time will need to be replaced at the tenants cost, provided they were stated as working when the original inventory was constructed.

It would be excessive for the landlord to replace a whole carpet due to a small number of burn marks. Therefore, every time a tenant contributed to the damage of a carpet the landlord should only charge an apportionment charge for that specific damage. Once the carpet is so badly damaged through numerous damages, over various tenancies, he will then pay for the replacement himself, having received various contributions over the years.

Of course! If you wish to see an invoice of works then our Deposit Return team can provide this. In most instances, an invoice will be available. However if the landlord has decided to only charge an apportionment charge for damage, then works will not have been carried out and therefore no invoice will be available.

Grease marks are not classed as fair wear and tear as it is avoidable damage. The landlord is not obliged to provide headboards and it is the responsibility of the tenant to either ensure they are not marking the walls with grease or that they make good any grease marks prior to checkout by repainting the wall.

The inventory clerk will have examined the property at the point of constructing the original inventory. They will at this point have highlighted any areas that already have blu-tac marks, scuffs, nails, etc. If the clerk has highlighted that a wall that was unmarked on the inventory, now has marks at the end of the tenancy then they will highlight it as new damage that needs to be remedied at the tenants cost.

Blu-tac and nails are classed as avoidable damage and so do not class as fair wear and tear. Fair wear and tear is light damage such as scuffs in communal stairwells which accumulate over the period of the tenancy. Fair wear and tear is calculated based on the length of the tenancy and the type of occupant.

It is very difficult to remove marks through cleaning the walls and doing so can often cause more damage. Although some very minor marks can be removed by wiping the wall gently with a damp cloth, the majority will not clean off. Rubbing the wall too hard in an attempt to remove marks will cause damage to the paintwork which often looks worse than the original mark and will need repainting anyway.

Please refer to the explanation of how these charges are worked out above. The apportionment of charges between landlord and tenant should reflect the condition of the walls at the start of the tenancy so the fact that they were not freshly painted has been taken into account already in the amount that you have been charged.