How is my deposit protected?
What estate and letting agencies need to publish
Deposit disputes are the most common source of landlord-tenant conflict, and the rules are strict.
How customers actually ask it
The same intent arrives in wording your page probably does not use. All of these mean the same thing:
- “How is my deposit protected?”
- “deposit scheme”
- “when do I get my deposit back”
- “damage deposit”
- “is my deposit safe”
What a complete answer contains
For estate and letting agencies specifically, an answer is only complete when it covers all 5:
- 1
Which government-approved scheme you use, named
- 2
The statutory timeframe for protecting it and issuing prescribed information
- 3
Maximum deposit permitted, where capped by law
- 4
The process and timeframe for return at the end of the tenancy
- 5
How disputes are adjudicated and by whom
A worked example
Illustrative — not a real business
Deposits are protected in a government-approved scheme within 30 days of receipt, and you receive the prescribed information at the same time. The deposit is capped at five weeks' rent. At the end of the tenancy we aim to return it within ten days of check-out; any dispute goes to the scheme's free adjudication service.
Which page should own it
Tenant information page
What silence costs
Failing to protect a deposit correctly exposes a landlord to a penalty of up to three times its value. Publishing the process demonstrates compliance.
More questions estate and letting agencies get
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industry
AI customer support for real estate
Property enquiries arrive at night and on weekends, and the first agent to reply usually wins the viewing. RubyRep answers questions about listings, fees and the buying or renting process from your own site, then hands warm enquiries to an agent with the contact options you set.
term
What is AI customer service?
AI customer service means answering customer questions with a language model rather than a person. The useful implementations are grounded in a specific business's own content; the poor ones let a general model improvise, which produces confident answers that are wrong.
term
What is a knowledge base?
Traditionally a knowledge base is a help centre humans read. For AI support it is the source material a representative answers from — which means an ordinary website, well written, can serve as one without a separate help centre.
Does your site answer this already?
Point RubyRep at your website and ask it this exact question. If it cannot answer, neither can your customers.