#AskTDS: I'm taking over management from my letting agent, do I need to re-protect my tenancy deposit?

There are instances where a landlord has decided to manage the property themselves, and so would like the deposit protection to reflect this. The process of transferring a deposit from an agent member to a landlord member is as follows.

TDSNI Insured agent membership to TDSNI Insured landlord membership:

If your agent is using TDSNI Insured and you wish to protect the deposit yourself with TDSNI Insured, you will need to create a free membership (if you have not already done so) via the ‘Join the Tenancy Deposit Scheme for Landlords’ page on our website.  You will need then register the deposit and pay the small protection fee, and provide the certificate to your agent, as confirmation of the deposit protection, for them to release the deposit funds to you.

TDSNI Insured agent membership to TDSNI Custodial landlord membership:

In the instance you wish to transfer the deposit from your agents TDSNI Insured protection into our TDSNI Custodial scheme, you will need to ‘Join TDS Custodial’.   Once this has been completed, you will need to register the deposit and give the agent the TDSNI Custodial deposit registration number (this starts with EW) and the TDSNI Custodial bank details for the agent to transfer the deposit monies.

TDSNI Custodial agent membership to TDSNI Custodial landlord membership:

In order to transfer the deposit protection from your agents TDSNI Custodial membership to a TDSNI Custodial membership of your own, you will need to ‘Join TDS Custodial’ and register the deposit.

Once this has been completed, you will need to provide your membership number and your name, as stated in their membership, to your agent.  Your agent can then log into their account, locate the deposit protection and click on the “Transfer deposit” button at the bottom of the page.  They will then need to input your membership number and name and click on “Transfer single deposit”.  You will then be notified of this transfer request by email.  You will need to log into their account and accept the transfer request. This completes the process.

About TDSNI: 

Tenancy Deposit Scheme Northern Ireland (TDSNI) is a government-approved scheme for the protection of tenancy deposits; TDSNI offers both Insured and Custodial protection and also provides fair adjudication for disputes that arise over the tenancy deposits that we protect.

TDSNI Insured Scheme: where a TDSNI member can hold the tenancy deposits as stakeholder during the term of the tenancy.

TDSNI Custodial Scheme: where TDSNI hold the deposit for the duration of the tenancy.

TDSNI Academy: TDSNI provides property professionals with invaluable training in tenancy deposit protection and tenancy deposit disputes.

TDSNI can only comment on the process for our scheme, other deposit protection schemes may have a different process/require different steps. Content is correct at the time of writing.

ARLA Propertymark: For agents who would like to stay up to date, you can contact Propertymark | ARLA at: join@propertymark.com. By being a member of Propertymark | ARLA you will be eligible for TDS Insured best headline rates.