Record a Tenancy With No Cash Deposit

Why this matters

A compliance reminder that fires when nothing is owed is worse than no reminder at all. It trains you to ignore the ones that matter.

That is exactly what was happening to landlords using a deposit replacement product — Zero Deposit, Reposit, Flatfair and similar — or who simply took no deposit. LetSorted assumed every tenancy had a cash deposit sitting somewhere, so it kept flagging deposit protection as outstanding on tenancies where there was nothing to protect.

The legal position, briefly

Statutory tenancy deposit protection attaches to money, and only to money.

Section 212(8) of the Housing Act 2004 defines a tenancy deposit as money held as security for the tenant's obligations. The duties in section 213 — protect it in an authorised scheme and serve prescribed information within 30 days — all operate on that definition, and are triggered on receipt of a deposit. If no money is taken, no duty is engaged.

With a deposit replacement product, the tenant pays a non-refundable fee to the scheme provider. You receive no deposit. There is therefore no registration with DPS, TDS or MyDeposits and no prescribed information for you to serve. The document that matters is the provider's own agreement, signed by the tenant.

One important limit. If you take any cash alongside a replacement product, that cash is a tenancy deposit and must be protected in the normal way, within 30 days, with prescribed information served. The rule is "no cash held", not "the zero-deposit box is ticked". If you are unsure how the 30-day duty works, our deposit protection guide walks through it.

Worth knowing as context: under the Tenant Fees Act 2019, a replacement product should be offered as a genuine choice alongside a traditional deposit rather than imposed on the tenant.

What changed

1. A new deposit option — "No deposit / deposit replacement scheme" sits alongside DPS, MyDeposits and TDS when you record a tenancy
2. No deposit amount required — the amount field is only mandatory when there is a cash deposit to enter
3. Provider recorded for the trail — you can note which provider is involved (Zero Deposit, Reposit, Flatfair, or other). This is captured for your records; it creates no protection duty
4. The false flag is gone — the 30-day protection hints are suppressed for these tenancies, because there is nothing to protect
5. The tenancy displays cleanly — a tenancy with no deposit reads as exactly that, rather than as a missing figure

The reminders you get should be the ones that apply to you. See how compliance tracking works →

What you need to do

When you add a tenant, or when you edit an existing tenancy, choose No deposit / deposit replacement scheme from the deposit scheme list and pick the provider if there is one. That is all.

If you already recorded a zero-deposit tenancy as though it had a cash deposit, update it and the protection prompts will stop.

This is general information, not legal advice. If any cash changed hands, protect it.