# 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
## Before you rely on this
**Not professional advice.** This capability calculates property figures from published rules. It is a software component for developers, not legal or financial advice. Rules change and every rate here has an effective date. Check that the dates cover your case. Verify results against the official sources listed above, and have a conveyancer or tax adviser review how you use it, before anyone relies on the output. Provided "as is" under its licence, without warranty.
**Unreviewed.** This capability's implementations agree in every language and pass its published test vectors, which were worked out from the official sources cited. But no qualified conveyancer or tax adviser has yet checked those vectors, or confirmed that the capability covers the cases it claims. Treat it as a draft. Do not use it for real people, money or decisions without your own expert review. Once a qualified reviewer signs off, this notice is replaced with their name, qualification and the date. Each new version needs fresh sign-off.
1.0.1 marks it unreviewed. The code and the tests are unchanged.