# property.holding-deposit-cap

The most a landlord or letting agent may take as a holding deposit to take a
property off the market while references are checked: one week's rent.

One week's rent is the annual rent divided by 52, and annual rent is weekly
rent × 52, monthly rent × 12, or the annual rent itself. £1,000 a month is
£12,000 a year, so the cap is £230.76 (£230.769… rounded down). A weekly rent
is its own cap exactly.

## Why it is shaped this way

- **Rounded down, once.** Neither Act states a rounding rule; rounding up
  would put the deposit a fraction of a penny over the statutory maximum, so
  the only safe answer is down.
- **Total rent, not per tenant.** For a joint tenancy the cap is one week of
  the rent the tenants are jointly liable for, and the guidance is explicit
  that a landlord cannot take a week's rent from each tenant.
- **No date argument.** The cap has been one week's rent since it was
  introduced (England from 1 June 2019, Wales from 1 September 2019) and has
  not changed; the Renters' Rights Act 2025 left it as it was. If it ever
  changes, it becomes dated data in a new version.
- The rent period type is `RentPeriod` from property.deposit-cap, so the two
  calculations accept the same inputs.

## What it does not do

It does not decide whether a holding deposit may be kept or must be repaid
(the 15-day deadline for agreement and its exceptions), and it does not
apply to Scotland, where holding deposits are treated differently.

## Sources

- Tenant Fees Act 2019, Schedule 1 paragraph 3 (holding deposit: at most one
  week's rent, being the annual rent divided by 52):
  https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/4/schedule/1
- "Tenant Fees Act 2019: statutory guidance for enforcement authorities" (as
  amended by the Renters' Rights Act 2025; the joint-tenancy example, a
  weekly rent of £240 allows one £240 holding deposit in total):
  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tenant-fees-act-amended-by-the-renters-rights-act-2025/tenant-fees-act-2019-statutory-guidance-for-enforcement-authorities
- Renting Homes (Fees etc.) (Wales) Act 2019, Schedule 2 (holding deposit of
  no more than one week's rent): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2019/2/schedule/2