Improved Deposit Protection in Add Tenant Form

Why we improved it

Deposit protection is one of the most common compliance failures for self-managing landlords. Under Section 213 of the Housing Act 2004, landlords must protect the deposit in a government-approved scheme within 30 days of receiving it and serve prescribed information to the tenant. Failure to comply carries penalties of up to 3 times the deposit amount — and invalidates any Section 8 notice served under the Renters' Rights Act 2025.

Previously, the Add Tenant form treated deposit fields as optional. This meant landlords could create a tenancy without entering deposit details at all, missing a critical compliance step. The free-text "Deposit scheme" field also led to inconsistent entries and made it harder to track protection status.

What we built

The deposit section of the Add Tenant form now guides landlords through compliance automatically:

• Auto-calculated deposit — when you enter the monthly rent, the deposit amount is pre-filled at 5 weeks' rent (the legal maximum under the Tenant Fees Act 2019). You can still edit it if the actual deposit is lower
• Required fields — deposit amount and deposit scheme are now mandatory. You can't create a tenancy without entering these details
• Scheme dropdown — the free-text input has been replaced with a dropdown listing the three government-approved schemes: DPS, MyDeposits, and TDS. A "Not yet protected" option is available for deposits that haven't been registered yet
• A recorded answer, not an assumption — the tenancy's deposit section asks outright whether the deposit is protected. Answering "yes" asks for the scheme, the reference and the date it was protected, so the record is evidence rather than a tick. Until you answer, it reads as "Not recorded" everywhere it appears — including on a dispute evidence pack, which will never state that a deposit is unprotected simply because nobody has told us otherwise
• Compliance guidance — a collapsible info box explains the key rules: protect within 30 days, serve prescribed information, and the consequences of non-compliance

Deposit mistakes are expensive. The improved form makes sure you don't miss this step. Add a tenant now →

How to use it

1. Go to any property and click Add tenant
2. Enter the monthly rent — the deposit amount auto-fills at 5 weeks' rent
3. Select your deposit scheme from the dropdown (or choose "Not yet protected" if you haven't registered yet)
4. Add the deposit reference number once you've registered with your scheme
5. The compliance tip box explains what's required and links to our deposit protection guide for the full walkthrough

Once you have registered the deposit, open the tenancy on the property page and record it as protected, with the scheme, the reference and the date. LetSorted does not send deposit protection reminders — the 30-day clock runs from the day you received the money, which is a date we do not hold, so we would be guessing. We show you what has and has not been recorded, and leave the deadline to you.