Every approved deposit scheme comes with a dispute service, and it is free to use. That is unusual enough to be worth saying plainly: if your deposit is protected, you have access to a binding decision without paying a fee, filing at court or instructing anyone.
It is called alternative dispute resolution, or ADR. Here is what it actually is.
What it is
An independent adjudicator reads the evidence from both sides and decides how the disputed money is split. The decision binds both of you.
Three things follow from that, and they surprise people:
Nobody visits the property. The adjudicator will never see it. Everything they know comes from what the two of you send.
There is no hearing. You do not speak to anyone. You cannot clarify, respond to a surprise, or explain a photograph. Your file has to stand on its own.
It is usually final. Having agreed to adjudication, you generally cannot then take the same dispute to court because you did not like the answer. Reviews exist for procedural errors, not for a second opinion.
So the file is the whole case, submitted once, read by someone with no context beyond it.
How to start it
You do not need your landlord's agreement.
Contact the scheme holding the deposit and raise the dispute. The scheme then requires the landlord to respond, typically within 14 days. A landlord who ignores the scheme is in a much worse position than one who ignores you.
If you do not know which scheme holds it, search all three in England and Wales — DPS, TDS and mydeposits — using the property postcode, deposit amount and your surname or tenancy start date.
The timeline
- Negotiation period, typically around 14 days, for you and the landlord to settle it directly. Many disputes end here
- Formal dispute raised. Schemes generally expect this within 90 days of the tenancy ending
- The other party responds, usually within 14 days
- Evidence submitted, often with a final window of a few working days to add anything last
- Adjudication, typically within about 28 days of the file being complete
- Money released, normally within about 10 days of the decision
Roughly two months from formal dispute to decision. The 90-day window is the deadline that actually costs people the service, so diarise it the day your tenancy ends.
Who has to prove what
The landlord carries the burden. For each deduction they have to show:
- That there is a genuine loss
- That it goes beyond fair wear and tear and is your responsibility
- That the amount claimed is reasonable for the item's age and condition
If they cannot evidence all three for a given item, that portion comes back to you. You are not required to prove the property was perfect.
This is the single most useful thing to understand before you write anything, because it changes what you should spend your words on. Not a defence of your character — an assessment of whether each claim has been evidenced.
What to put in
- Dated move-in photographs, with wide shots as well as close-ups
- The check-in inventory and your written comments on it
- Dated move-out photographs, taken with the property empty
- Meter readings with serial numbers, for any utilities claim
- The messages you sent during the tenancy reporting problems, with dates
- A short, itemised response to each deduction, saying accepted or disputed and why
- Original files, not crops or edits
The strongest submissions usually start long before a dispute: see our move-in checklist and move-out checklist for what to record and when.
What to leave out
- Long narratives about the landlord's behaviour
- Unrelated grievances from the tenancy
- Undated, context-free photographs
- Claims you cannot support, mixed in with the ones you can
That last one costs more than people realise. One unsupported assertion makes an adjudicator read everything else more carefully, and not in your favour.
What evidence to send in a deposit dispute goes into the file itself in more detail.
What ADR cannot do
The service is only about the deposit. It will not deal with:
- Rent arrears beyond the deposit amount
- Disrepair or a landlord's failure to carry out repairs
- Harassment or illegal eviction
- Compensation for an unprotected deposit — because if it is unprotected, there is no scheme, which is the entire problem. That claim goes to the county court. See what to do if your deposit isn't protected
- Anything arising after the tenancy that is not a deposit question
For those, the routes are the council's housing team, Citizens Advice, Shelter, or court.
Should you use it, or go to court?
For a protected deposit, use ADR. It costs nothing, the adjudicators do this every day, and court means a fee, more work and a slower answer for the same question.
The main reason to consider court instead is if your claim goes beyond what the scheme can decide — for example a deposit dispute combined with a disrepair claim. Get advice before choosing a route, then read the court guide for tenancy deposit disputes for the forms, fees and evidence involved.
The uncomfortable part
Everything that decides an ADR case was created before the dispute existed. The photographs, the inventory comments, the dated emails — all of it is work done by someone who had no idea it would ever matter.
There is no way to make up for it afterwards. An adjudicator reading a file with no check-in evidence is not being unfair when they accept the landlord's account of what changed; they simply have nothing else to weigh it against.
Which is why the practical advice for anyone not currently in a dispute is the boring one: build the record at move-in. Our move-in inventory checklist covers it.
Put it in writing
If you disagree with a deduction, or the deposit has not come back, reply in writing, one charge at a time. Our free deposit letter can help: choose England and Wales, list each charge you dispute and why, and it writes a polite, dated letter asking for the money or for the check-in inventory and receipts, and saying you will use your scheme's free dispute service if you cannot agree. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
Where RentSeal fits
RentSeal is built to make that file exist and stay findable — one tenancy, photos organised by room, notes and documents, dated as they are added, exportable as a single pack when a scheme asks for one. You can see how it works first.
It does not decide responsibility, and it cannot promise an outcome. This guide explains the process in general terms and is not legal advice. Exact deadlines vary between schemes — follow the ones your scheme gives you.