Guaranteed chaos

Few areas of law can have so disproportionately consumed time and money than the litigation regarding the protection of tenancy deposits. Ever since the Housing Act 2004 (HA 2004) introduced a statutory scheme for their protection the higher courts—and an immeasurable number of county courts—have been occupied with deciphering what Parliament had intended when introducing this scheme.

Sections 212–215 of HA 2004 saw the tenancy deposit pendulum swing the tenant’s way, who was seemingly able to obtain the return of his deposit plus three times its value if the landlord had complied but complied late (after 14 days of receipt). However, following Vision Enterprises Ltd v Tiensia [2010] EWCA Civ 1224, [2011] 1 All ER 1059 and Gladehurst Properties Ltd v Hashemi [2011] EWCA Civ 60, [2011] All ER (D) 180 (Jan) the Court of Appeal thrust the pendulum the other way by explaining that there was in fact no 14-day time limit for compliance and, moreover,