Rental deposits in Wales rising faster than in England – with cleanliness the top dispute for landlords

Nation Cymru staff

Rents in Wales rose faster than in England over the past year, pushing deposits to record levels and increasing the sums at stake when tenancies end in disagreement.

Annual rent rises reached 8.8% in Wales to March 2025, against 7.9% in England, according to figures published alongside the Tenancy Deposit Scheme’s latest statistical briefing. The average protected deposit across England and Wales has reached £1,175, the highest level recorded.

There are now 4,706,470 deposits protected across the two countries, with a combined value of £5.53bn, up around 6% on the previous year.

Formal disputes remain uncommon. Around 1% of protected deposits went to adjudication in 2024/25, a total of 46,950 cases, marginally up from 0.91% the year before but consistent with a long-running pattern of roughly one dispute per hundred tenancies.

When tenants and landlords do fall out, cleaning is the most common reason. It featured in 54% of adjudicated cases, ahead of damage at 49% and redecoration at 31%. Gardening accounted for 14% and rent arrears 10%.

In Swansea, Office for National Statistics figures put the average private rent at £843 a month as of June 2026, with two-bedroom properties averaging £789.

Toria Hibbert, who runs The Ready Maids, a Swansea cleaning firm employing more than twenty people across residential and commercial contracts, said the recurring problem was that nobody defines the standard.

“Nobody writes down what clean means, and that is the whole argument,” she said. “A tenant hoovers, wipes the sides, takes the bins out and thinks they have done a proper job. The inventory clerk is looking inside the oven, behind the fridge, at the grout and at the extractor filter. Neither of them is being unreasonable. They are using the same word to mean two different things.”

She said her company is called in by both sides, often after a deduction has already been proposed.

“We get landlords wanting a property turned round before the next viewing, and we get tenants who have had money held back and want it done properly so they can challenge it,” she said. “The second group are usually the ones who cleaned in a rush on the last morning while the van was outside.”

Deposit protection rules apply across England and Wales, with three government-approved schemes and free alternative dispute resolution that typically takes four to six weeks. Deductions must be for genuine, evidenced reasons, and cleaning is only chargeable to return a property to the standard recorded at the start of the tenancy, not to improve on it.

Wales operates its own regulatory framework alongside those rules. The Housing (Wales) Act 2014 underpins Rent Smart Wales, requiring landlords to register and those carrying out letting or management work to hold a licence. Since December 2022 most residential lettings in Wales have been governed by occupation contracts under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016.

Steve Harriott, chief executive of TDS Group, said the findings underlined the value of detailed inventories and clear expectations from the outset, and that the professionalism of agents and cooperation of tenants meant the overwhelming majority of tenancies still ended without a formal dispute.

Shelter Cymru and Citizens Advice both offer free advice to renters in Wales facing deposit deductions.

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