London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Sunday, Sep 14, 2025

Our landlord failed to protect our deposit, so we sued him

Our landlord failed to protect our deposit, so we sued him

It turned out that our deposit hadn’t been protected and the house was unlicensed. We won £15,000

Like lots of tenants, my housemates and I had a bad experience with our landlord. We lived for months with damp and mould, endured his reluctance to carry out basic repairs, and were messed around when it was time for him to return our deposit. Unlike most tenants, we took our landlord to court – and won £15,000.

In November 2020, as we settled into a winter lockdown, our landlord told my housemates and I that we would have to leave as he was looking to sell the property. The next thing we knew, we were spending hours in the garden in our coats and hats, watching people view our home through the living-room windows like sad animals in a depressing renters’ zoo. “These are the current tenants,” the estate agent would say as we bared our teeth at a succession of clean-faced young professional couples.

Our landlord had seemed convinced that my housemates and I were engaged in a mutually beneficial relationship with him; even after selling the house we had been inconveniently living in, he continued to consider ours a partnership based on trust. So firmly based on trust, in fact, that when we asked him where he had protected our deposit, he was downright aggrieved. Friends don’t ask each other questions like that, seemed to be his attitude. We only asked about this because he had taken about £700 off our deposit on spurious grounds.

Unsurprisingly, he had not protected the deposit, which is a legal obligation for landlords. Nor had he licensed our home as an HMO (house in multiple occupation). As a result, with the help of the tenants’ rights charity Justice for Tenants, we had a case against him.

There are three recognised deposit protection schemes in England, which you can contact to check whether your deposit has been registered or not. If a landlord hasn’t protected your money, they will be liable to pay up to three times the deposit back to their tenants.

The HMO licence is another legal obligation for properties with several tenants (if you are, for example, renting to a group of friends rather than a single family unit). To obtain an HMO licence, landlords need to register with the relevant local authority and show they have passed a series of checks relating to, among other things, gas and fire safety.

Licensing requirements vary by local authority, but they will be available on your council’s website. You can find out if your property is HMO-licensed by contacting your local authority; failure to do this in accordance with the authority’s regulations carries significant penalties. Research from 2019 estimated that as many as 130,000 properties in London were not HMO-licensed; ours, you may not be surprised to learn, was among them.

The straightforwardness of the law means that proceedings like the one Justice for Tenants launched on our behalf are similarly straightforward. The group operates on a no win, no fee basis, so we did not have to pay any legal costs upfront – it just took a share of the final award.

‘Despite positive noises from the government in recent months, England has no national landlord register.’


As a member of a renters’ union and having often worked around housing legislation in my professional life, I was quite sanguine about the risk of losing, which – given the information and legal support we had – I knew to be extremely low. Landlords rely on people not knowing their rights and not bringing these kind of proceedings, and not on the legal merits of their actions themselves. It is ultimately a numbers game; the number of people who will contest landlords’ malpractice is going to be quite low, and probably low enough for them to feel they can get away with it.

For the proceedings, we provided various pieces of documentation relating to our tenancy, along with witness statements, and Justice for Tenants did the rest of the legal filings. Other organisations like Flat Justice, Acorn or your local renters’ union will also be able to help you with representation and advice if you think your landlord has been in breach of their obligations.

It is helpful in cases like ours to keep records of a landlord’s bad behaviour – failing to fix appliances, damp, mould, not giving notice for inspections and so on – as these things, although not actionable in themselves, will strengthen the case by indicating the landlord was more broadly not fulfilling their responsibilities.

Some time after we had submitted everything, we received a court date for the hearing. If our case had happened a year previously, it would have been open and shut; if you don’t license your property, you will have to pay your tenants a year of back rent. Unfortunately, from the perspective of tenants, in October 2021 some new case law – Williams v Parmar, for the legally minded – set a precedent that encouraged judges to consider the position of the landlord and to make financial awards accordingly. As a lot of this legislation is premised around deterrence, if your landlord owns several properties or is what is sometimes termed a “professional landlord” (although possessing assets is not a job), they are more likely to receive harsher penalties.

On the advice of Justice for Tenants, we settled for what ended up being £2,350 each before the hearing, with the non-profit organisation taking a similar share.

The experience of renting is one that feels, probably more than anything else, unfair and exploitative. Mortgage repayments are, generally speaking, less than rent, while the private rented sector has grown exponentially since the millennium, with little corresponding growth in regulation.

Despite positive noises from the government in recent months, England has no national landlord register, and London, since the lifting of restrictions, has been an unusually tough market for renters. The refreshingly straightforward legal reality of the rent repayment order constitutes a small way to level this most unlevel of playing fields.

I don’t consider myself a particularly avaricious person, but I can confirm that if money won is sweeter than money earned, money won from your landlord is sweetest of all.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
The German Owner of Politico Mathias Döpfner Eyes Further U.S. Media Expansion After Axel Springer Restructuring
Suspect Arrested: Utah Man in Custody for Charlie Kirk’s Fatal Shooting
In a politically motivated trial: Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years for Plotting Coup After 2022 Defeat
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
ChatGPT CEO signals policy to alert authorities over suicidal youth after teen’s death
The British legal mafia hit back: Banksy mural of judge beating protester is scrubbed from London court
Surpassing Musk: Larry Ellison becomes the richest man in the world
Embarrassment for Starmer: He fired the ambassador photographed on Epstein’s 'pedophile island'
Manhunt after 'skilled sniper' shot Charlie Kirk. Footage: Suspect running on rooftop during panic
Effective Protest Results: Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns as Youth-Led Unrest Shakes the Nation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
King Charles and Prince Harry Share First In-Person Moment in 19 Months
Starmer Establishes Economic ‘Budget Board’ to Centralise Policy and Rebuild Business Trust
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
Poland Shoots Down Russian Drones in Airspace Violation During Ukraine Attack
Brazilian police say ex-President Bolsonaro had planned to flee to Argentina seeking asylum
Trinidad Leader Applauds U.S. Naval Strike and Advocates Forceful Action Against Traffickers
Kim Jong Un Oversees Final Test of New High-Thrust Solid-Fuel Rocket Engine
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Macron Appoints Sébastien Lecornu as Prime Minister Amid Budget Crisis and Political Turmoil
Supreme Court temporarily allows Trump to pause billions in foreign aid
Charlie Sheen says his father, Martin Sheen, turned him in to the police: 'The greatest betrayal possible'
Vatican hosts first Catholic LGBTQ pilgrimage
Apple Unveils iPhone 17 Series, iPhone Air, Apple Watch 11 and More at 'Awe Dropping' Event
Pig Heads Left Outside Multiple Paris Mosques in Outrage-Inducing Acts
Nvidia’s ‘Wow’ Factor Is Fading. The AI chip giant used to beat Wall Street expectations for earnings by a substantial margin. That trajectory is coming down to earth.
France joins Eurozone’s ‘periphery’ as turmoil deepens, say investors
On the Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s Death: Prince Harry Returns to Britain
France Faces New Political Crisis, again, as Prime Minister Bayrou Pushed Out
Murdoch Family Finalises $3.3 Billion Succession Pact, Ensuring Eldest Son’s Leadership
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Court Staff Cover Up Banksy Image of Judge Beating a Protester
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
Elon Musk Poised to Become First Trillionaire Under Ambitious Tesla Pay Plan
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
Burning the Minister’s House Helped Protesters to Win Justice: Prabowo Fires Finance Minister in Wake of Indonesia Protests
Brazil Braces for Fallout from Bolsonaro Trial by corrupted judge
The Country That Got Too Rich? Public Spending Dominates Norway Election
Nearly 40 Years Later: Nike Changes the Legendary Slogan Just Do It
×