What is the purpose of prescribed information and why doesn’t the Renters’ Rights Act fix it?

On the point about the deposit prescribed information, there was a case on this in 2012. Here, the Court of Appeal ruled that it was important and necessary, as it told tenants how they could seek to recover their money and how they could dispute deductions without having to go to court.

I reported on this case on my Landlord Law Blog here: https://www.landlordlawblog.co.uk/2012/11/12/important-news-for-landlords-on-tenancy-deposits-ignore-this-at-your-peril/

Whilst the Prescribed Information doesn’t really provide anything ADDITIONAL to the Terms and Conditions already provided, it does signpost tenants to the specific terms in the T&Cs and in their tenancy agreement that they will need to read to find the rules about how their deposit is handled etc. The T&Cs are what we’d call “the fine print” and they definitely are not user friendly. Very few people are going to read these in full and the font is minuscule! Also, tenancy agreements are very long-winded and sections are not always clearly labeled.

I totally agree with your issues regarding fairness for all, and the supposedly unintended consequences brought about by a lot of tenancy regulations, however I don’t think the government has any genuine care for the public, be they tenants or landlords, or anyone else for that matter. Their goal is simply to redirect the blame from their own doorstep following their poor forward planning for housing in this country. They’re busy selling off the public sector housing for short term gains in the coffers, short term cost cutting from having to manage social housing and then having to spend twice as much in temporary accommodation costs. The public is angry and the government is providing them a scapegoat…

I am afraid we are stuck with the requirement for prescribed information. The requirement for protecting deposits was brought in to stop landlords and agents making spurious deductions for minor damage that left the tenant having to bring a claim to recover the deposit. That “mischief”, as the lawyers put it, could have been dealt with by requiring the deposit to be insured or lodged with a provider and left it at that. Even if the lodgement was only at the end of the tenancy, the deposit would have been protected.
However, Parliament (and I suspect it was anti-landlord civil servants) added bells and whistles. The rules are unnecessarily prescriptive but that is the point. This increases the prospect of tripping up landlords.
Two examples. First, it took a court case to determine that cross-referring in the prescribed information to the wrong clause in a tenancy agreement did not amount to a breach entitling the tenant to compensation.
Second, did you know that the rules require that “any fax number” of the provider with whom the deposit is insured or lodged must be provided in the prescribed information? Even this is (deliberately?) ambiguous. If I am required to give details of “any” bank account I have, giving details of just one will not suffice. Now, no judge is going to require that every fax number (if the DPS, TDS etc. still have fax machines) must be provided but the point is the rules could have said ” a fax number” instead of “any”.
The penalties for breach of the rules are draconian. It could have been left to the judge to treat a breach like a breach of contract and to award a sum that reflected the seriousness of the matter and the loss, if any (and usually there is no financial loss) to the tenant. The one to three times penalty allows ambulance chasers to threaten landlords with the loss of 3 to 4 months income for some technical breach. Some on the Left believe that anything that hurts landlords is good. That is why we have such awful laws. Incompetent (and occasionally vindictive) politicians go along with this nonsense.

I mitigated this risk by not taking deposits.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 10/12/2025 – 12:40
First, it took a court case to determine that cross-referring in the prescribed information to the wrong clause in a tenancy agreement did not amount to a breach entitling the tenant to compensation.

What case was this? Do you mean the actual wrong cross reference was not classed as a breach at all so no valid claim over the deposit was not properly protected (so no 3 times max deposit return claim) OR do you mean zero entitlement to claim for anything OVER if the three times max deposit was returned?

Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 10/12/2025 – 17:42
OK, but what do you do instead? Require a guarantee?

Reply to the comment left by Reluctant Landlord at 10:52

The case is Lowe v Governors of Sutton’s Hospital in Charterhouse [2024] EWHC 646 (Ch). The prescribed information referred to clause 6 when it should have referred to clause 5.3.
See e.g. commentary here: https://cornerstonebarristers.com/depositing-common-sense-lowe-v-the-governors-of-suttons-hospital-in-charterhouse/
“The Judge had been right to conclude that though the certificate contained an obvious error, it caused no real prejudice, on the established line of authority from Mannai Investments v Eagle Star [1997] AC 749, as summarised in Pease v Carter [2020] 1 WLR 1459. A reasonable recipient of the certificate in these circumstances would have appreciated there was an error (as there was no clause 6), and seen that clause 5.3 set out the circumstances in which part of the deposit might be retained by the landlord. The court agreed with C that the savings words of section 213(6)(a) (in ‘a form substantially to the same effect’) did not apply, as the requirement of article 2(10(g)(vi) was not one of form. However, the Judge’s conclusion on the correct interpretation of the information provided remained correct.”

Reply to the comment left by Tessa Shepperson at 10/12/2025 – 09:36
Thank you Tessa, if a tenant falls into arrears and a deposit is held – a reasonable person would likely say the held money could be used to repay the debt? After all a deposit is in place to cover losses and none is more deserving then non payment of due rent?

Whilst I don’t have much information on other circumstances the problem here appears to be the judgement and punitive costs which appear grossly unfair.

This judgement imposes expenditure in the rental cycle in that all landlords have to do additional documentation? Maybe the judge should have ruled the deposit was offsetting a loss and this is implicit and ordered the due rent to be paid from the deposit? I wonder why they didn’t?

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 10/12/2025 – 12:40
Very well said.