Under the provisions of the United Kingdom Housing Act 2004 every landlord or letting agent that takes a deposit for an assured shorthold tenancy in England and Wales must protect the deposit under an authorised tenancy deposit scheme. The regulations came into effect on 6 April 2007, and were amended by the Localism Act 2011 (taking effect from 6 April 2012) and the Deregulation Act 2015 (taking effect from 26 March 2015). Most recently the Tenant Fees Act 2019 provided further protections for tenants (e.g. restricting the maximum deposit that can be taken and banning automatic cleaning fees regardless of how clean the property was returned).
