Two duties, both with the same thirty day deadline, both carrying the same penalty of one to three times the deposit. Protecting the money and never serving the information is a breach, and it is the commonest one there is. Solicitors and the deposit schemes both describe it as one of the commonest failures there is.
Since Section 21 was abolished in May 2026, an unprotected deposit prevents a court making a possession order under almost every Section 8 ground, and Section 8 is now the only route. Whether a missing prescribed information does the same is less settled, so it is worth taking advice rather than assuming either way. Enter what you have for each tenancy and this checks the dates against the deadline, including the renewals that quietly restart the clock. A tenant has 6 years to claim, so tenancies that ended a while ago still count. Nothing is uploaded.
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This covers England and Wales and applies the thirty day deadline in sections 213 to 215 of the Housing Act 2004, together with the deposit cap in the Tenant Fees Act 2019. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own schemes and their own deadlines. It checks the dates you enter against a published rule, which is not the same as advice on your position: whether a renewal restarted the clock depends on how that renewal was documented, and the penalty a court orders is at its discretion within the one to three times range. Shelter and Citizens Advice both advise free of charge, and anything with real money behind it is worth putting in front of a housing solicitor.
It is a set of details about the scheme holding the deposit that must be given to the tenant within the same thirty days as the protection itself. It is a separate duty under section 213(6), and failing it carries the same penalty as never protecting the money at all. Protecting a deposit properly and never serving the information is the commonest breach there is, and it is one of the commonest failures there is.
From the day the money is received, not from the tenancy start and not from when the tenant moves in. A deposit paid on 1 March for a tenancy starting on 15 March must be protected by 31 March. This catches people out where a holding deposit converts to a tenancy deposit, because the clock started earlier than they think.
It can. Where a renewal creates a new fixed term the deposit may be treated as received again, which restarts both the protection and the prescribed information clocks. A deposit protected perfectly in 2022 can be non compliant because of a 2024 renewal that nobody did anything about. Whether it applies depends on how the renewal was documented, so it is worth checking with your scheme and taking advice rather than assuming either way.
Six years from the end of the tenancy. That means tenancies that ended years ago still matter, and it also means the landlord has to be able to prove compliance long after the scheme emails have been deleted. The burden of showing the deposit was protected in time and the information served in time sits with the landlord rather than the tenant.
A court can order between one and three times the deposit, and the amount is at its discretion. A first breach that was put right promptly tends toward the lower end and a deliberate or repeated failure toward the upper. The deposit itself is usually ordered to be returned or protected as well, so the penalty is on top of the money.