Rented sector reform: landlord and tenant engagement questionnaire - analysis report

7: Unclaimed tenancy deposits

The Scottish Government is considering making changes to regulations so that tenancy deposit schemes are required to request alternative contact details from the tenant when a tenancy deposit is lodged. It also proposes to provide more information to tenants about unclaimed tenancy deposits to raise awareness of the issue and to be clear about what would happen if they don’t reclaim their deposit.

Unclaimed tenancy deposits funds would be able to be transferred to Scottish Government after a set amount of time. Former tenants whose unclaimed deposits had been transferred to the Scottish Government, to still be able to reclaim their deposit under certain circumstances.

Question 28 – To what extend do you agree with the following uses of the funds?

At Question 28 respondents were asked to indicate their views on five potential uses for any unclaimed deposits transferred to the Scottish Government. The options were:

(a) The prevention of homelessness from the private rented sector.

(b) Advice, information and assistance to private tenants.

(c) Funding to persons or bodies that can assist private tenants to address barriers to the private rented sector and support access to private rented housing.

(d) Activities that support private tenant participation and the representation of tenants’ interests at a local and national level.

(e) Assisting private tenants to exercise their rights.

Responses to Question 28 are set out in Chart 2 below. As at Question 10, the chart presents the results for PRS landlords, PRS tenants and all respondents, the first two groups having been selected as broadly representative of the two positions that respondents tended to take at this question. Full results, for all respondent groups, are included at Annex A.

Overall, respondents were most likely to strongly agree that any unclaimed funds should be used on the prevention of homelessness from the PRS; 71% of all those answering strongly agreed, and a further 11% agreed with this use of funds. This was the only use of funds with which a majority of both PRS landlords and tenants strongly agreed or agreed.

A majority of those answering the question also strongly agreed or agreed with providing advice, information and assistance to private tenants and with assisting private tenants to exercise their rights; 67% and 61% respectively supported these uses. However, a small majority of PRS landlords disagreed or strongly disagreed with using the funds to assist private tenants to exercise their rights (51% of those answering).

In terms of funding to address barriers to the PRS and support access and supporting private tenant participation and representation, a majority overall, and a large majority of PRS tenants, neither agreed nor disagreed. For example, 62% of all respondents and 92% of PRS tenants were neutral on the funding to address barriers option.^[7]