Contents
Tenancy Deposit Protection with Rentman
Setup
: Deposit Protection Schemes Screen.
Using
the Dispute Service (TDS) scheme.
Using
the MyDeposits or Tenancy Deposit Solution (TDSL) scheme.
Rentman includes a tenancy agreement for each of the deposit schemes.
These tenancy agreements have the prescribed information that you must, by law,
give the tenant.
Rentman’s ToDo screen will guide you through the process by showing
tenancies where you have yet to register deposits and tenancies that have been
registered but where the tenant has not been notified.
The schemes are represented within Rentman by bank accounts. You can post
deposit money from your client account into these (pseudo) accounts to
represent you lodging the actual money with the scheme provider.
Rentman
treats a Scheme as just another client account Bank Account; so deposits (and
disputed amounts) lodged with the schemes continue to show in the trial balance
and landlord balances etc. The thinking being that it is lodged with the scheme
using the agent's ID so should still be considered 'held' by the agent (in the
same way that money held in a Barclays's account is still held by the agent not
Barclays) - treating the scheme as a repository and arbitration service rather
than a stakeholder on equal footing. Note: ARLA agrees with this thinking.
Please also
remember the term “Client Account” can mean one of two things:
a)
all
the money held by the agent on behalf of clients regardless of whether it be as
cash or in one of any number of bank accounts
b)
a bank
account of that name.
Rentman “client account reports” refer to that first meaning. If you
want to see just the entries for the bank account of that name use the Bank
Ledger screen and print from there.
There is some debate as to when a holding fee becomes a “Deposit” under
the law – is it when you receive the first holding deposit, when you have
received the full amount of the deposit or when the tenancy begins? The law simply
states that you must register and inform the tenant within 30 days of receipt.
On the company preferences screen set the order deal sheet money gets allocated to “Fees, Rent, Other, Deposit”. Any holding fee will then be allocated as your administration fee (and can be invoiced and retained as such if the applicants back out). As you receive more money the deal sheet receipts get allocated in the order selected. The moment any deal sheet money is allocated against Deposit in Rentman you should consider it as “Deposit” (as defined in law). You must register the deposit within 30 days of THAT date… not within 30 days of the start of the tenancy.
The ToDo list shows unregistered deposits with the date the first money
was allocated as deposit, the start of the tenancy, the amount of the deposit
and how much is outstanding.
Tenancies where the first money allocated as deposit was received
> 21 days ago will be shown in red.
The first notification to the Tenant and Landlord produced by Rentman
is the Tenancy Agreement. You should (must) give the tenant a receipt for a
holding deposit with a brochure about your preferred scheme.
Once the deposit has been registered you should send the tenant a
notification letter informing him that the deposit has been registered together
with the registration number. This notification letter simply refers the tenant
to the tenancy agreement as the agreements have the prescribed information in
the manner dictated by the respective scheme providers. This notification
should also be sent within 30 days from the date of first receipt.
Go to this screen
by clicking the System/Setup/Deposit Schemes menu option in Rentman.
There is a record for each of the deposit schemes. Enter here your
agency’s registration id (aka membership number)
with each scheme. TDS also has a Member ID and Branch ID
that are required for the import (see below); unfortunately you will have to
ask TDS what your values are as, at present, they only inform you of your
“membership number”. Leave these values blank for other schemes.
This is where you see the amount being held plus any movement of the money between accounts.
It is also from here that you register the deposit with the schemes, send details to the tenant, post between accounts and retain against rent, expenses or invoices.
At the moment Rentman can only help with the registration process for
The Dispute Service. As and when each of the other schemes implements an
electronic registration process it will be supported by Rentman.
This is the custodial scheme.
DO NOT transfer the deposit to the Landlord’s account within the DPS
scheme. (This is contrary to the advice given by DPS but they are wrong - if
the Landlord wishes to administer the deposit by having it transferred to
his/her account within the scheme then the Lettings Agreement should show that
the Landlord is holding the deposit.)
REMEMBER : Even though you may have lodged the
deposit with DPS it is still being held by you, the agent and will show in your
trial balance and on the landlord ledgers. It is just being looked after on
your behalf by the scheme instead of Barclays (or whoever you usually bank
with).
This is an insured scheme backed by NAEA/ARLA. See above
regarding the member id and branch id values required by the import – you may
need to contact TDS to find out what your values are.
This is an insured scheme backed by the National Association of
Landlords.
Click the
Disputes button on the Deposits screen in Rentman. A new screen appears for you
to enter details of the dispute.
This information will also be required to be submitted to the scheme provider ; at present there is no electronic way for Rentman
to upload this data for you.
If this tenancy is covered by TDS or TDSL insured schemes you will
need to transfer the disputed amount to the provider. You should find that the
scheme provider has been setup as a bank account within Rentman to represent
and track money sent to the schemes. Again, in time it is hoped that Rentman
will be able to post the money for you via BACS but none of the scheme providers
offer that ability as yet.
Click the return to tenant button on the deposit screen and enter in
the amount being returned.
If the money is being returned by the scheme provider (as will usually
be the case with DPS or disputed amounts) then the money is to be returned from
the appropriate bank account.
For instance: In many cases the DPS will return the tenants amount
directly to them plus a single transfer to the agent for any retained amounts.
To make Rentman reflect real life make sure the amount being returned to the
tenant is marked as being from the DPS bank account. Then Transfer the retained
amount from the DPS account to the Client Account (as one transaction). Then
retain as rent, pay an invoice etc specifying each transaction as being from
the Client Account.