Your landlord is required by law to protect your deposit in one of three government nominated protection schemes. If they failed to protect it, or in your case, failed to protect it on time you are able to claim between 1 and 3x your deposit back from your landlord. Your deposit must be protected within 30 days of you paying it.
Example: you paid your deposit to your landlord on 1st January 2016 and they protected it with one of the three protection schemes on 15th February 2016: you would be entitled to make a claim against your landlord, even if they had returned it to you when you left the property.
Example: your landlord protected the deposit on time, however they removed it from the protection scheme half way through your tenancy and left it un-protected for over 30 days: you would be entitled to claim between 1 and 3x your deposit back from your landlord.
To check if you’re entitled to your deposit protection claim complete our claim checker here: