Three stories this week share the same thread: outcomes are increasingly decided by who kept the better paper trail, not by what’s actually wrong with a property. A landlords’ association is alarmed at what a tribunal will now pay out over a mouldy window, a specialist lender says roughly one home in seventeen is quietly unmortgageable regardless of condition, and the tenancy deposit industry is rebuilding itself around a government policy that hasn’t actually been decided yet. None of it is new law — it’s evidence and money catching up with practice that’s been quietly true for a while.
The mould defence: what a tribunal now expects from a landlord’s paperwork
The Portsmouth & District Private Landlords Association says tribunals are increasingly awarding compensation disproportionate to the actual inconvenience caused, as LandlordZone reports. Cited cases include a 5% rent deduction across an entire tenancy — equivalent to six new cookers — for a cooker fault never reported during occupancy, a 30% rent repayment order in a Southsea case where the tribunal itself linked the mould partly to inadequate window ventilation, and compensation over a pre-let leak based on a tenant’s claimed “ongoing anxiety.” Chairman Alwin Oliver didn’t hold back: “The law is no longer about bricks and mortar — it is about narrative, perception, and judicial discretion,” adding that no-win-no-fee firms “are pushing cases that would never have been brought ten years ago.”
My read: Oliver’s framing is self-serving in places, but the Southsea case is worth taking seriously on its own terms, because a tribunal explicitly weighing inadequate ventilation against tenant behaviour is precisely the kind of finding an independent damp-and-ventilation assessment is built to settle before it ever reaches a hearing. The landlords most exposed here aren’t the ones with genuinely poor properties — they’re the ones with a defensible property and no paper trail to prove it.
Dated repair records, a written response to every maintenance request and, where damp or mould has been raised more than once, an independent condition assessment are no longer belt-and-braces. They are what turns “narrative” back into evidence in your favour rather than the tenant’s.
1.5 million homes lenders won’t touch — and why a survey matters more, not less
Specialist lender Together estimates that around 1.5 million UK homes — roughly 6% of the country’s 28 million properties — fall outside mainstream mortgage lending criteria, as Property Industry Eye reports. The features it names are thatched roofs, short leases, solid-wall construction, high-rise locations, proximity to commercial premises and the absence of a functioning kitchen or bathroom. Of buyers surveyed, 21% had already had a mortgage application rejected and 32% found their lender options significantly narrowed, yet 44% still pursued these properties because they judged them better value. Chief commercial officer Ryan Etchells called it “one of the less visible challenges facing the UK property market.”
My read: every feature on that list is one I flag routinely on a Building Survey or HomeBuyer Survey, and the gap this story exposes is that buyers are shopping on price and renovation potential without first checking whether their intended lender will touch the property at all. A standard mortgage valuation is not designed to catch this — it exists to protect the lender’s security, not to warn a buyer that a solid-wall Victorian cottage or a 58-year lease flat needs a specialist lender before it needs a builder.
If you’re bidding on anything with thatch, solid walls, a short lease or an unconventional layout, get the lending question answered in principle before you fall for the discount. A survey that flags the construction type is only useful if it reaches you before the mortgage application, not after it’s declined.
Deposit protection is being rebuilt before anyone’s decided what it’s for
The government is weighing an end to insurance-backed tenancy deposit protection, in favour of the custodial model, as Property118 reports, with nothing yet in legislation and a wider review of the deposit system not due until 2027. Propertymark’s Henry Griffith said “the potential ending of insurance-based deposit protection schemes will require some landlords to review their current arrangements,” while the NRLA’s advice is to keep using current arrangements until anything is confirmed. On the same day, mydeposits announced its own response to that uncertainty: as Property118 also reports, it is merging its insured and custodial schemes onto a single platform, “Total Property,” capping the cost at £22 per deposit allocation including VAT and giving existing insured-backed members a one-third NRLA discount, automatically, with no re-registration required. Chief executive Eddie Hooker called it “our biggest investment in insured deposit protection.”
My read: mydeposits is making its largest-ever bet on the exact product category the government is simultaneously reviewing for possible abolition, and that tension is the story, not the platform migration itself. It tells you the scheme providers don’t expect insurance-backed protection to disappear soon even if it eventually does, and it tells landlords using deposit-replacement products such as Reposit that the direction of travel favours what they’re already using, not what they might be pushed into.
If your deposits sit with an insurance-backed scheme, there is nothing to action today — both trade bodies are explicit that current arrangements remain valid. But note the renewal date under the new platform and diarise a proper review of your deposit protection method once the 2027 consultation actually opens, rather than reacting after a scheme provider tells you the rules have changed.
What I’d actually do
- Had a repeat damp, mould or maintenance complaint from a tenant? Get an independent condition or ventilation assessment and keep a dated record of every report and response — it is your defence if a claim follows.
- Bidding on a thatched, solid-wall, short-lease or non-standard property? Confirm mainstream mortgage eligibility in principle before you commit, not after a rejection.
- Using an insurance-backed deposit scheme? Keep using it as normal for now, but note your new renewal date under any merged platform and watch for the 2027 deposit system review rather than acting on speculation now.
If today’s notes have you checking a property’s damp or ventilation record, wondering whether a bargain you’ve found will actually get a mortgage, or reviewing how a let is protected and documented, the practice offers full building surveys, Buy to Let Surveys and damp and ventilation assessments across the South East. Get in touch.
Small print. General commentary, not advice for your specific circumstances — regulations, schemes and deadlines change, and your property is not the average property. Sources linked were accurate when read on 4 August 2026.