Under most sorts of residential lease, where a tenant has paid a deposit to their landlord, the landlord must pay the deposit in to one of the approved tenancy deposit schemes, and give the tenant evidence of this as well as some other prescribed information. At the end of the lease if landlord and tenant cannot agree a fair amount to be deducted from the deposit for damage etc., then the dispute is channelled in to an automatic dispute resolution procedure to make the decision.

If a landlord does not put the deposit into a protected scheme, a tenant may apply to the court to make the landlord pay him up to three times the amount of the deposit, among other things.

All landlords entering in to new leases, and all landlords with existing leases (especially those that have been going for a long time) are recommended to check if their deposits are in a protected scheme and, if they are not, to seek advice about whether they need to be paid in.