LETTINGSnews
PROPERTYdrum exclusive!
PROPERTYdrum that the problems arose because the budgets for 2009 were set in October 2008 and calculations made on a wing and a prayer. “Draconian steps had to be
taken, just to keep the organisation afloat. Had they not, TDS would have gone belly up.”
There was to be a new regime, a more open approach, a willingness to talk to agents, to meet them and discuss their issues. “I want TDS to be the biggest and best tenancy deposit scheme,” he said. There was no doubting his sincerity and a search was launched for a new CEO, who was appointed in September 2010. PROPERTYdrum’s Editor met
Steve Harriott (below), the man who accepted the challenge to turn the
tenancy deposits TDS – The firefighting is over!
2010 was, without doubt, a challenging year for the Tenancy Deposit Scheme. The problems started with a much higher than predicted number of deposit disputes, which led to financial issues, which, in turn led to increases in subscriptions for the year. Some of these increases were drastic, causing a furore amongst scheme members, some of whom
tenancy deposits Surplus forecasted for 2010-11
The radical overhaul of its subscription model has returned the Tenancy Deposit Scheme to financial health, as reported in the TDS Review and Annual Accounts for 2009-10 published at the end of January. The Scheme is now forecasting a surplus for 2010-11 and there will be no increase in members’ subscriptions for the financial year beginning April 2011. As a result of the overhaul of the subscription model, subscription levels of a maximum £15 per tenancy for RICS and NFOPP members and £18 per tenancy for NALS and Law Society members, all with possible discounts of up to 60 per cent, remain unchanged. Prior to 2010, subscriptions were calculated on a fee for
38 FEBRUARY 2011 PROPERTYdrum
each branch. This capped subscription income had to finance the rise in both the overall number of tenancy deposit registrations and in disputes. From only 577 in the year ending in March 2008, disputes referred had risen to 11,613 by the year ending March 2010. Despite this, nearly £1
billion in deposits belonging to 1,488,508 tenants in 969,817 tenancies were protected. There was a relatively even split in the awards made after adjudication with tenants receiving 56 per cent of the awards, landlords 46 per cent and agents two per cent. At nearly 50 per cent, cleaning remained the single biggest cause of disputes among the wide variety of
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issues referred for Alternative Dispute Resolution. As a cause of contention, cleaning is followed by damage, 39 per cent, redecoration 24 per cent and gardening 12 per cent. Rent arrears as a cause of
TDS Review 2009-10
dispute have fallen substantially since 2007, from 22 per cent to 15 per cent. “By any measure, 2009-10
‘The scheme is now forecasting a surplus for the year 2010/11.’
was a challenging year and the Board was forced to take a number of difficult decisions. These are now proving to be the right decisions and I believe we are now set fair to provide a competitive and first class service to our members. I would like to thank them and our staff for their support during the last year.” The TDS Review 2009-10 and the Annual Accounts are available at
www.tds.gb.com
were faced with fees that were four times higher than the previous year.
In May, a new Chairman of the Board was appointed, Professor Martin Partington, CBE QC (left). At the time, Professor Partington told
organisation around, with his right hand man, Michael Morgan,
Head of Adjudication at TDS. Both men are clearly dedicated to the success of TDS and understand that communication with agents is key. Steve Harriott said that as the workload increased there was a degree of ‘fire fighting’ to keep up and the communication process failed. “Now that firefighting is over,” he said “100 per cent of our
disputes are now completed within 28 days (of us receiving all the information) and we are meeting all our key performance indicators.” “We are building amore
accountable scheme, through evolution rather than revolution,” said Mike Morgan, “We now have nine dedicated call centre staff to answer queries – over half of which used to be from tenants asking if their deposit was protected, so now we have a facility on our website for them to check this, meaning that our staff can spend time more effectively answering agent and landlord enquiries.” TDS has also appointed more
adjudicators and changed their process to bring further efficiencies. In addition to the appointments of Professor Partington and Steve Harriott, compliance expert Jodi Berg has joined the
board and Ben Beadle (pictured left) has been promoted to Head of Member Relations. The TDS Members Forum has
also been established, representing the full spectrum of membership and, currently, meets monthly, while the management team is touring the country, meeting agents, giving short presentations and answering their queries.
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