Latest news

10th August 2010

TDS Announces New CEO Steve Harriott has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of The Dispute Service, the not-for-profit organisation responsible for the Tenancy Deposit Scheme. read more

7th July 2010

TDS to Guide Through AST Changes

Many existing private sector tenancies with rental values of up to £100,000 a year will become Assured Shorthold Tenancies, ASTs, as from 1 October 2010.

30th June 2010

TDS Moving Ahead The wide ranging review carried out by the Tenancy Deposit Scheme since the beginning of the year has led to improved methods for resolving tenancy deposit disputes. read more

25th June 2010

TDS Snapshot Day Soon Letting agents who are members of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme have been reminded to check their tenancies registered with the Scheme before June 27. read more

18th May 2010

Major Changes at TDS. The Board of The Dispute Service has ratified changes to the management and governance of The Tenancy Deposit Scheme first announced in April. The Dispute Service is the not-for-profit company that runs the Scheme. read more

17th May 2010

Martin Partington CBE QC has become Chairman of The Dispute Service. A former Law Commissioner, Professor Partington has taken over from John Hornsey. read more

18th January 2010

TDS - Fairer Subscriptions on the Way Invoices being issued from this week to lettings agents who are members of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme will show the effect of the new charging system first announced last autumn. Following a detailed analysis of the usage of the Scheme and its Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) services, significant discounting has been possible. 85% of all letting agents who are members of the TDS will be charged the lowest rates that are available through insured deposit protection schemes. read more

25th November 2009

Tenancy Deposit Scheme - New Charging System Coming Soon The Board of the Dispute Service has approved a change in the method of charging subscriptions for The Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS) next year. Subscriptions will be determined on a fairer basis to take account of the dramatic rise in disputes being sent for resolution by members of the Scheme. The new system was announced today. read more

14th September 2009

Costs to Rise for Mandatory Tenancy Deposit Cover 2008-09, the second year of operation since mandatory deposit protection was introduced into the private rented sector, was successful for the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS). read more

29th April 2009

Warm Welcome

The newly appointed Outreach Manager to the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, Helen McCarthy, has been warmly welcomed by member firms.

3rd April 2009

Tenancy Deposit Scheme Approaches the Billion Pound Mark At the approach of the second anniversary of mandatory tenancy deposit protection next week (on Monday April 6), the Tenancy Deposit Scheme reports that it is protecting over £800 million pounds in tenants deposits, an increase of a quarter of a billion pounds in less than 12 months. read more

10th March 2009

Tenancy Deposit Scheme Appoints Outreach Manager to Educate, Inform and Facilitate The Tenancy Deposit Scheme has appointed an Outreach Manager as part of a continuous programme to educate, inform, facilitate and to gather feedback from member letting agents. read more

16th February 2009

Deposit Disputes - The Stories Behind the Resolution The Tenancy Deposit Scheme has published a series of case studies, selected at random, into disputes between landlords and tenants over deposit monies due. read more

26th January 2009

TDS Rules of Membership Change The recent Crown Court judgement in the case of Harvey v Bamforth revealed an anomaly in the Housing Act 2004. TDS has changed its rules slightly to clarify the formal requirements of the Scheme read more

13th January 2009

New Council for The Dispute Service The Dispute Service has re-cast its governance structure. The organisation now has a small Board of Directors responsible for the management and operation of The Dispute Service and the Tenancy Deposit Scheme... read more

5th January 2009

Tenancy Deposit Scheme membership withdrawn from Unregulated Letting Agents At the insistence of their insurers, The Tenancy Deposit Scheme will only provide deposit protection and alternative dispute resolution to letting agents who are members of recognised professional bodies. read more

25th November 2008

Tough but Successful First Year for the Tenancy Deposit Scheme The first year of operations for the Tenancy Deposit Scheme proved tough due to the very tight inaugural deadlines. However, it was successful and had nearly half a billion pounds in deposits covered and 2,000 disputes resolved. This is shown in the Annual Report of The Dispute Service published today, Tuesday 25 November. read more

21st October 2008

Banking Crisis Statement on behalf of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme In view of the banking crisis, The Dispute Service Ltd, who runs the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, has issued a statement about the safety of tenants' deposits: read more

9th September 2008

Will TDS deal with disputes over non-ASTs? We continue to offer a dispute resolution service for all your tenancies. Whilst it is correct that the Housing Act 2004 prescribes only that deposits taken on ASTs must be protected by... read more

10 June 2008

Low Dispute Rates Over Tenancy Deposits Encouraging, Says TDS The Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS) has welcomed the fact that the first year of mandatory tenancy deposit protection has produced a lower than expected dispute rate... read more

31 March 2008

Update of TDS documentation: TDS forms can now be completed on screen and saved to your own computer and printed out... See documents and forms... read more

7 March 2008

Timely submission of evidence Adjudications are made on the basis of the material sent to us. It is not for us to go looking for evidence... read more

5 March 2008

Half a Billion Pounds and Rising - Growth in Protection and Resolution from the Tenancy Deposit Scheme Half a Billion pounds in tenants' deposits has been safeguarded by the Tenancy Deposit Scheme in less than a year since deposit protection and Alternative Dispute Resolution became mandatory. read more

28 February 2008

Without Prejudice We have noticed that there is a tendency for parties to a dispute to head correspondence "Without Prejudice"... read more

21 February 2008

Change of Postal Address We have changed our postal address. It is now.. read more

14 February 2008

Changes to The Dispute Service website Following valuable feedback and suggestions from TDS members we have made significant changes to the website and its data input processes.. read more

22 January 2008

Lettings Agents and Corporate Landlords Boost The Tenancy Deposit Scheme is showing considerable growth in the number of tenancies covered and amount of money that is now safeguarded. The scheme is one of the three government authorised deposit protection schemes. Its core membership is among lettings agents and corporate landlords. read more

11 November 2007

Rounded picture of success from The Tenancy Deposit Scheme Figures published today in an autumn News Bulletin circulated to all members of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, TDS, give the first rounded picture of the scale of the Scheme's success during the first six months read more

6 November 2007

The Autumn News Bulletin has all the facts about deposits covered, the numbers of landlords, tenancies and tenants in the Scheme, stemming the first flood and what everyone should know.. read more

18 September 2007

Landlords and tenants begin to understand deposit protection Landlords and tenants in the Private Rented Sector have become substantially more aware of Tenancy Deposit Protection during the summer months. Nearly two thirds of all landlords and approaching half of all tenants are now believed to understand the mandatory requirements to protect deposits and provide for dispute resolution. read more

20 August 2007

New Publication TDS L Progress of a dispute ( - 61 KB) has now been written to explain how we will deal with deposit disputes, and in particular what to take into account in deciding.. read more

14 August 2007

Revised documentation TDS has now been running successfully for several months. With valuable feedback from members and experience of how TDS has been working for them, we have.. read more

10 August 2007

Dealing with TDSRA disputes under TDS rules Whilst we continue to receive a growing volume of deposit disputes, those stemming from the Tenancy Deposit Scheme for Regulated Agents (TDSRA) are declining as the tenancies it covered are coming to an end read more

29 May 2007

Tenancy deposits - They've got attitude The results of the first major survey into the take-up and attitudes to mandatory Tenancy Deposit Protection since its implementation were announced today (May 29) by the Tenancy Deposit Scheme. read more

6 May 2007

Significant numbers of agents already registered for Tenancy Deposit Scheme One month after the introduction of mandatory tenancy deposit protection, the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, TDS, announced it has registered well over 5,000 lettings offices to the scheme. Even at this late stage, an average of 45 offices are being signed up every day. read more