No one likes to find themselves facing a deposit dispute. Often the fastest way to resolve a dispute is to talk to your tenants and come to a fair and reasonable agreement on how the deposit should be split between you.
In some instances, despite your best efforts, you may reach a stalemate. If you find yourself in this situation, our Dispute Resolution Service is there to help you. Disputes can take a lot longer to resolve than finding an agreement directly with your tenant, and to help you understand why dispute resolution takes the time it does, we’ve laid out all the steps in our handy infographic timeline. Users of the service do need to be aware that disputes often last for the full duration below, though it’s worth bearing in mind that our adjudicators do resolve many disputes more quickly than this.
| Day 1 | Your claim formally enters dispute. We email instructions to you and your tenants to collate and submit evidence. Both parties have 14 calendar days from the date of this email to submit their evidence. We won’t request specific items of evidence so make sure you submit everything relevant to your claim. |
| Working day 10 | All evidence from you and your tenants must be submitted by this date. |
| Working day 11 | Our disputes team needs up to 5 working days to carry out the pre-adjudication assessment of all evidence. If they identify a problem with the evidence, they may contact you or your tenants for clarification, which can delay us in sending the dispute to an adjudicator. |
| Working day 16 | The dispute is sent to an adjudicator who then has up to 20 working days to review all the evidence submitted against the claim and reach a decision on how the deposit will be repaid. Adjudicators can reach a decision more quickly but often need the full 20 days. |
| Working day 36 | The adjudicator reaches their decision and communicates the result to us. |
| Working day 38 | Our disputes team sends details of the adjudicator’s decision to you and your tenants. Payments are processed ten days after delivery of the decision to allow any party time to request a review of that decision should they feel it has failed to consider all of the facts presented. 5 working days should then be allowed to receive the funds following release by The LPSS. |
In some circumstances, as mentioned above, these timings could be extended. Most often this occurs when a query arises regarding the evidence or the claim itself, either during the pre-adjudication assessment or the main adjudication.
Here to help you
Our free dispute resolution service is here to help you and your tenants reach a fair and reasonable outcome in the case of a deposit dispute. That’s why we’ve created helpful guides for the dispute resolution process. To help you increase your chances of a successful claim, make sure you follow our essential guide to dispute resolution.