Your deposit questions, answered.

Photos (including iPhone HEIC), videos, PDFs, Word documents (.docx), and text and CSV files. Each file can be up to 50MB and each video up to 500MB, with 2GB in all for a case or a Locker property. Audio files such as voice notes or call recordings aren’t accepted, and nor are ZIP files or older .doc Word files. For a WhatsApp chat, export it and upload the text file, unzipping it first if it comes as a ZIP, or upload screenshots. Your scheme’s own limits are separate, and we apply them when we build the deposit dispute pack.

Yes. Choose or drop as many as you like, and they go up 25 at a time while you keep working. Keep the page open until they’ve finished, because leaving stops the uploads. Each photo can be up to 50MB, and a case or Locker property holds 2GB in all. A photo uploaded twice is recognised, so it isn’t kept twice.

Yes, as files from your device, but not as links. We don’t connect to iCloud, Google Drive or Dropbox, and we can’t open links to shared folders. On a phone, the file picker usually includes iCloud Drive, Google Drive or Dropbox if they’re set up, and on a computer, download the files first. Photos saved from an app or website can lose the date they were taken. If so, we ask you roughly when, so they’re matched to the right end of the tenancy.

In the Evidence Locker, open the tenancy and add the file to its Check-in report or inventory drawer. To make a clerk’s inventory the check-in, choose it under ‘Have a clerk’s inventory?’, select Use as the check-in, then send it to your tenant to sign. Uploaded within 14 days of the tenancy starting, it puts the check-in on the record, though only the guided check-in in the app makes a deposit dispute pack free. For a case, upload it on the evidence screen, and we recognise it as the check-in inventory.

You can add words, but you can’t draw on a photo. Open a file’s details to give it a name saying what it shows, its date, its room and notes of up to 2,000 characters. In a case, the name you give helps title the photo as an exhibit in your deposit dispute pack. We don’t edit or mark up photos, and the original is always kept exactly as you uploaded it.

In the Evidence Locker, open the file’s options and choose Delete. It goes straight away, with every stored copy. In a case, choose Remove from the file’s options and confirm, which you can do until you pay. If a tenancy’s documents went to the wrong tenancy, choose Move to instead. A case already started from that tenancy keeps its own copies, so remove them from the case too.

No. A document deleted from the Evidence Locker goes straight away, with every stored copy, and we can’t restore it. Deleting a property or tenancy asks you to confirm first, because it can’t be undone. A case started from that tenancy keeps its own copy of the photo. A deleted case is the exception: choose Undo straight away, and after a day it’s gone for good.

No, the photos you upload are kept exactly as they were. We also make a smaller copy for viewing and a thumbnail. Photos taken with the camera during an inspection are saved as JPEGs up to 2,400 pixels on the longest side. In a deposit dispute pack, photos are printed smaller only when that’s needed to keep the evidence PDF within your scheme’s file size limit.

Read the message beside the file first. ZIP files and programs aren’t accepted, files over 50MB or videos over 500MB are turned away, and a damaged file needs saving or exporting again. If the upload stopped, check your connection, choose Try again and keep the page open until it finishes. On a work network, uploads can be blocked even when pages load. If it still fails, email help@tenancyvaults.co.uk with the file’s name and type.

After a video uploads, we check it and, if needed, make a copy that plays in any browser. That can take a few minutes for a long video, and the file shows Sorting… meanwhile. Once it shows Ready, it should play. If it says we couldn’t process it, remove it and upload it again, or email help@tenancyvaults.co.uk if it still won’t play.

We turn each photo the right way up using the direction the camera recorded in it. A photo without that information, often one that was edited, screenshotted or saved from an app, is used as it’s stored. Rotate it on your phone or computer, save it, remove the sideways copy on the evidence screen and upload the new one. Do this before you pay, while the evidence screen is open. If you’ve already paid, email help@tenancyvaults.co.uk.

No. The only link you can share is the sign-off link for an inspection report, which shows your tenant the whole report with its photos. To send particular photos, download them and send them yourself.

Only you can upload to your account, so anything uploaded was added by you. A file that arrived by email is filed with a PDF of that email showing who sent it, and the original email is kept as it arrived. Each file keeps a SHA-256 fingerprint, the date it was added and the date it was taken or made, with where that date came from. Each step of a tenant’s sign-off is logged with its date and time under Full record. There’s no separate log of every change you make to a file.

Not through the sign-off link, which only lets them sign the report or comment on it, and tenants don’t have accounts. If you add your tenant’s email address to Allowed senders on your Account page, they can email photos to the tenancy’s own address. The photos are then filed with that tenancy.

Yes, each photo gets a date. We use the time it was taken in the app, or the date saved in the photo file, or a date on the document, its file name or the email it came in, in that order. The upload date is never used. If a date is missing or wrong, set it with When was it taken?. Any date you enter is shown in the pack’s Photo and video dates page as entered by you, which you confirm before you build.

Yes. The evidence screen groups photos by room as they’re read. Drag a photo to another room, or set its room in the file’s details. In the deposit dispute pack, each deduction shows its check-in and check-out photos side by side.

During a guided inspection, your phone checks each photo and asks you to retake one that looks blurred, too dark or too bright, and the AI may ask for a retake with its reason. For uploaded files, one we can’t read is held back as possibly blurred, dark or sideways. Upload a clearer copy, taken in daylight with something in the frame to show scale.

Not as one download yet. You can open and download each file on its own, and download your whole account as one ZIP from your Account page with Email me a copy. For a case, the pack screen has Download the PDF and Download the ZIP.

Yes, from a clear photo or scan of each page, as a PDF or as images. The AI reads handwriting less reliably than print, so check what it found, and a typed inventory is easier to read. Your inventory goes into the pack as you uploaded it.

Up-to-date Chrome, Edge and Firefox (version 111 or later) and Safari (16.4 or later). That covers iPhones, iPads, Android phones, Macs, Windows computers and Chromebooks, which run Chrome. It doesn’t work in Internet Explorer, which Microsoft no longer supports. If a page doesn’t look right, update your browser and try again.

Yes. Every step works on a phone, from starting a case and uploading photos to paying for and downloading the deposit dispute pack. The Evidence Locker’s guided inspections are made for a phone, using its camera in the browser. You can start on your phone and finish on a computer, because it’s the same account.

Your browser needs permission to use the camera. If it was refused, allow the camera for tenancyvaults.co.uk in your browser’s or phone’s settings, then reload the inspection. If it still won’t start, choose Use the camera app and take each photo with your phone’s own camera instead. Close other apps that might be using the camera, too.

You shouldn’t need to. If a page looks out of date, reload it, or sign out and back in. Don’t clear your phone browser’s data during an inspection. Its photos and notes are kept on the phone until they’ve uploaded, and clearing the data would remove any not yet sent. Clearing cookies also signs you out.

Usually, yes. Files upload straight to our storage at Amazon Web Services, so a network that blocks it can stop uploads while pages still load. If that happens, ask your IT team to allow tenancyvaults.co.uk and amazonaws.com, or use another connection, such as your phone’s data. Payments open on Stripe’s secure page, and some forms use Google’s check that you’re a person, so those need to be allowed too.

Probably not. Your statement and each deduction’s paragraph save as you type, and anything that showed Saved is kept. If a save failed, the words stay on screen, so copy them, sign in again and paste them back. Sessions last 30 days and are extended while you use them. Being signed out mid-way usually means cookies were cleared or the password was changed on another device.

Our emails come from cases@tenancyvaults.co.uk, and occasional news from news@mail.tenancyvaults.co.uk. Add both to your contacts or safe senders, or allow tenancyvaults.co.uk, so they reach your inbox. If one hasn’t come, check your junk folder first, because a sign-in link can take a minute or two. If an email to you bounced, we stop sending to that address, so email help@tenancyvaults.co.uk and we’ll check. Sign-off requests to your tenant come from cases@tenancyvaults.co.uk too.

Reload the page, then try a private window or another browser, with ad blockers and other extensions turned off. On a work network or VPN, try mobile data, because some networks block the services we use. If it still happens, email help@tenancyvaults.co.uk, or send the chat conversation to us, with the page, what you did and a screenshot.

The link may be old or mistyped, or the case or property may have been deleted. Go to your dashboard and open it from there. If a link in one of our emails or pages led there, tell us at help@tenancyvaults.co.uk which one, so we can fix it.

Yes, before you pay. Drag the deductions on the deductions screen, or use Move up and Move down from a deduction’s menu, and the pack keeps that order. For TDS, they’re grouped by category first, because that’s how TDS’s form takes them. The exhibits are numbered for you in your scheme’s order, and they can’t be reordered by hand.

Yes. Case details save as you answer each question, and files are kept as soon as they upload. Your statement and each deduction’s paragraph save as you type, and the screen shows “Saving…” then “Saved”. You can leave at any time and come back to the case from your dashboard.

Each time you build, the pack is saved as a new version, and the pack screen shows its number and the date it was built. Only the latest version is offered for download. Once you’ve paid, you can build the pack again as often as you need, at no extra cost.

Not inside TenancyVaults. A case can only be seen from your own account, and there’s no share link or reviewer access. Once you’ve built the pack, download the evidence PDF or the ZIP and send it to them yourself. If you change something after their review, build the pack again.

We don’t add a password to the evidence PDF or the ZIP. Your pack is stored privately, and each download uses a private link that works only from your account, for 10 minutes. Once downloaded, the files are yours to keep and share as you choose.

You can’t add a logo at the moment, and there’s no TenancyVaults branding to remove. The evidence PDF and the exhibit files don’t mention us, because they’re your own submission. Only the guide to submitting names TenancyVaults, and it’s for you, not for uploading.

Yes. Any deposit above £0 is accepted, and the price is the same whatever the deposit: £49, or £29 for Evidence Locker subscribers.

Yes. A past date is accepted for when the scheme asked for your evidence, and the case shows “Deadline passed”. The price is the same. The pack covers only your own evidence, and it doesn’t compare it with what the adjudicator decided.

No, we don’t write settlement offers. Evidence Locker subscribers can make a proposed deductions letter after the check-out comparison, for before a dispute starts. It lists each deduction with what was found, its photo numbers and the cost, then the total and what’s left of the deposit.

No, the size is set for you. Each deduction’s page in the deposit dispute pack shows up to two check-in and check-out pairs side by side. They’re printed smaller only when that’s needed to keep the evidence PDF within your scheme’s file limit. The full photos also go in the ZIP as exhibits of their own, as you uploaded them where your scheme takes that file type.

Upload them with the rest of your evidence, up to 500 MB each. In the evidence PDF, a video appears as a still from it beside the photos for its deduction, and the photo dates page lists its date. The video itself goes in the ZIP as its own exhibit, ready to upload to your scheme. If it’s too big for your scheme, the ZIP has a smaller copy, and the guide to submitting tells you if one still won’t fit.

No. A case is for one tenancy and the scheme that protects its deposit, and its pack is set out for that scheme. If you chose the wrong scheme, change it in the case details while you’re still gathering evidence. A different tenancy, with its deposit in another scheme, is a case of its own.

You set each amount, from your invoices, quotes or receipts. Where you’re replacing an old item, we suggest an amount reduced for age, using your scheme’s published lifespan figures. You can claim that amount, any amount up to the full one, or keep the full one. You can also enter the item’s age and its expected life yourself, and the reduction is worked out again.

No. The evidence PDF doesn’t show your email address or phone number. Its cover gives the property, the scheme, the tenancy, the deposit and the amount claimed. The photo dates page has a line for you to sign and date, with your name if your account has one.

A case moves through seven stages. Getting started means the case details aren’t finished, and Gathering evidence means you’re adding deductions and files. Being analysed means we’re reading the evidence, and Ready to preview means you can see how each deduction stands before paying. Paid means you can review and change the wording, Pack ready means the pack is built, and Submitted means you’ve told us you submitted it. We don’t track your scheme’s own stages, so a status such as “Awaiting tenant” comes from your scheme’s account. Check it there, or ask your scheme.

No. Once a case is marked submitted, it shows only its pack, and we don’t read or review the scheme’s decision. We don’t record or publish dispute outcomes. Evidence Locker subscribers can keep the decision with the tenancy’s documents, where it’s stored but not read by the AI.

An evidence PDF and a ZIP. The PDF has a cover, your statement, a schedule of deductions, a page for each deduction (the tenancy agreement clause, check-in and check-out photos side by side, the cost reduced for age and the cost evidence), the photo and video dates, a tenancy timeline and an index of exhibits. The ZIP holds the PDF, every exhibit named E1, E2 and so on, including your tenancy agreement, and a guide to submitting to your scheme. The pack doesn’t quote legislation.

Yes. The evidence screen stays open once your case is paid. Add the new files, then choose Run the analysis again to bring them into your deduction analysis and drafted text, and build the pack again. Building again costs nothing. A pack you’d already built is marked out of date until you do. Deductions can’t be added after paying, but you can leave one out or change its amount.

Yes. The sample case at /demo follows one tenancy from the scheme’s notification to the finished deposit dispute pack, and you can click through every screen. It isn’t a video, and nothing you do there is saved.

Each deduction is rated strong, moderate or weak on the analysis screen, from what your evidence shows: its condition at check-in, at check-out, and what it cost. Some gaps always lower it: no check-in evidence of the item makes it weak, and so does a rent arrears deduction with no rent statement or bank record. No invoice, quote or receipt on a deduction over £50, or a check-in inventory your tenant didn’t sign, caps it at moderate. Each rating lists what’s missing. There’s no overall score, and a rating doesn’t say how the adjudicator will decide.

No. You enter the tenancy’s dates, rent and deposit in the case details. The AI reads the agreement to find the clause each deduction relies on, which you can check before you build. It doesn’t check whether the deposit was protected on time.

Partly. Upload your tenant’s response with your evidence, and we read the deductions they dispute and the ones they agree to from it. We don’t write a point-by-point reply to their evidence. Whether you can answer your tenant’s evidence at all depends on your scheme, and our guide to each scheme’s dispute process explains it.

It’s built for the TDS, DPS and mydeposits dispute services, not for court. The evidence and exhibits are your own, so you can use them as you choose, but the pack isn’t laid out to court rules, and we don’t cover court procedure.

Yes. Your statement and the paragraph for each deduction are drafted from your evidence, and you can rewrite any of them on the review screen before you build. They save as you type. Keep to facts and evidence rather than opinion about your tenant: adjudicators decide on evidence.

Each download link works for 10 minutes, so open the case’s pack screen again and choose Download the PDF or Download the ZIP. Open the PDF in a different reader or browser, and unzip the ZIP before opening its files: every exhibit is also there as its own file. If it still doesn’t work, email help@tenancyvaults.co.uk with the property’s address.

Yes. Payment is made from your account on Stripe’s secure page, and any card it accepts can be used there, including your accountant’s or your company’s. Receipts go to the email address you sign in with. To have a company name on your invoices, email help@tenancyvaults.co.uk from that address. A payment can’t be split across two cards.

No. The Evidence Locker is one subscription, so each payment has one invoice covering all your properties. Your Subscription page lists each active property and what it adds, which helps if you split costs by property. Deposit dispute packs are paid for case by case, and each receipt names the property’s address.

There’s no pause, but you pay only for the properties you keep active. Archive a property between tenancies: everything in it stays, it stops being charged, and you can restore it whenever you like. The plan is always at least the price of one property, £4.99 a month or £49.99 a year. Or cancel, and your Locker stays there to open and download.

Nothing is deleted. When the time you’ve paid for ends, your Locker becomes read-only. You can still open and download every property, tenancy and file, or download everything as one ZIP from your Account page. There’s one Locker plan, so to pay less, archive the properties you no longer let. While you’re not subscribed, a deposit dispute pack is £49.

Yes. Until the end of the time you’ve paid for, choose Keep the subscription on your Subscription page and it carries on as before. After it has ended, you can subscribe again at any time, and your properties and everything in them are still there. The new plan is priced for the properties you haven’t archived, so archive any you no longer let before you subscribe.

Not directly. Your payment is due on the day you subscribed, each month or each year. If you switch from monthly to yearly, your yearly payments are then due on the day you switched.

Your account isn’t suspended, and there’s no charge for a failed payment. We email you, Stripe tries the same amount again over the next few days, and your Locker keeps working meanwhile. Change your card on your Subscription page to put it right. If every retry fails, the subscription is cancelled and your Locker becomes read-only: nothing in it is deleted, you can still open and download everything, and you can subscribe again at any time.

A refund goes back to the card you paid with and can take up to 10 days to show. For a deposit dispute pack, email help@tenancyvaults.co.uk before the pack is built and we refund you in full. If you end an Evidence Locker subscription in its 14-day cooling-off period, the refund is made straight away, less the days you’ve used.

We handle your data under UK GDPR and the rest of UK data protection law. For your account we’re the controller. For other people’s details in your evidence, such as your tenant’s, you’re the controller and we’re your processor. You can ask for a copy of your data, or for it to be corrected or deleted, and we reply within a month. Our privacy notice sets out what we collect, why, who handles it and how long we keep it.

We don’t look at your files, except to fix a problem you ask us about. Our admin tools show account and payment details only, and they can’t open evidence or case content. Your files are kept privately in London and open only through short-lived links from your own account. The AI reads your files to prepare your deposit dispute pack.

No. Your card details go straight to Stripe, which runs our payment page, and we never see them. We keep the amount, the date and a reference for each payment. Stripe keeps payment records for 6 years, for tax.

Your files are stored by Amazon Web Services in London, and your original uploads are never changed. Every night we make an encrypted copy of our databases in private storage and keep 14 days of copies, so we can restore them. If something went wrong with your data, we’d tell you without undue delay. You can also download everything in your account at any time from your Account page.

Where the law requires it, we’d report it to the Information Commissioner’s Office within 72 hours. We’d also tell the people affected without undue delay. To report a security concern, email help@tenancyvaults.co.uk.

No, we hold neither, and we don’t have a separate security document to send. Every connection to the site is encrypted, and your files are kept privately in London, opened only through short-lived links. Every case, property and file can be reached only from its owner’s account. Passwords are stored scrambled and checked against known leaked passwords. We never see card details, and our logs and error reports leave out personal details.

Yes, only the services we need to run TenancyVaults, each under a contract that limits what it can do with your data. They include Railway for hosting and our database in the EU, Amazon Web Services for file storage in London, Anthropic for AI, Stripe for payments and Resend for emails. Our privacy notice lists them, with what each does and where it processes data.

That’s for you to decide as the landlord, and we can’t advise on it. For your tenant’s details in your evidence, you’re the controller and we’re your processor. We use those details only to prepare your deposit dispute pack, and we pass any request from your tenant about their data to you. Our privacy notice sets out how we handle it.

You’d get 60 days’ notice by email, with a link to download your data, before anything is deleted. You can also download everything at any time from your Account page, as one ZIP of your properties, tenancies, inspections, sign-offs, cases and original files.

There’s no anonymise option, but you can delete what you no longer need. Deleting a tenancy removes it with its documents and filed emails, and deleting a property removes everything in it. You can delete a case at any time, and undo that for a day. With a subscription, you can also edit a tenancy’s details, such as the tenants’ names.

We keep the IP address and browser type with each signed-in session, to keep your account secure. It goes when the session ends, after up to 30 days or when you sign out. Our rate limits use a scrambled form of it, and our logs and error reports remove it. The companies that host the site also see it in their own request logs.

Yes, they’re kept for 90 days after the last message, then deleted. Your question, the conversation so far and matching passages from our pages go to Anthropic’s Claude, which writes the answer. It never sees your account, your cases or your evidence. We read conversations to answer the ones you send us and to find questions our pages don’t answer yet.

Yes. Email help@tenancyvaults.co.uk and ask, and we’ll delete it within 30 days. Otherwise every conversation is deleted automatically 90 days after its last message.

UK GDPR sets no fixed period. The ICO says to keep personal data only as long as you need it, set and review your own retention periods, and consider whether you need it to defend possible legal claims. Six years is a common reference point, because the Limitation Act 1980 allows six years to bring a claim on a simple contract. HMRC says landlords keep tax records for at least 5 years after the 31 January Self Assessment deadline for each tax year. Data that can’t be relevant to a claim or your tax shouldn’t be kept for that reason.

SourcesICO: Principle (e), storage limitationLimitation Act 1980, section 5GOV.UK: Work out your rental income when you let property

Not necessarily. Consent is one of several lawful bases under UK GDPR, and the ICO says none is better than the others. It says consent usually isn’t right where there’s an imbalance of power, or where you’d use the data anyway if it were refused. The ICO also says renting out property is like running a small business, so data protection law applies to landlords. Whatever basis you rely on, tell your tenants why you use their data, how long you keep it and who you share it with. We don’t supply a template privacy notice.

SourcesICO: A guide to lawful basisICO: When is consent appropriate?ICO: The right to be informed

Yes, on request. For your tenants’ details in your evidence, you’re the controller and we’re your processor, and the ICO says a controller using a processor needs a written contract setting out what the processor may do. Our privacy notice and terms describe our role. Email help@tenancyvaults.co.uk to ask for a data processing agreement, and we’ll reply within two working days.

SourcesICO: Contracts between controllers and processors

Your files are stored in London, with Amazon Web Services. Our database and the app run in the EU, in the Netherlands, with Railway. The AI that reads your files, Anthropic’s Claude, may process data outside the UK, and doesn’t train on it. Transfers outside the UK are covered by adequacy decisions or standard contract clauses, as our privacy notice sets out.

You answer it, as the controller of your tenant’s data, and TenancyVaults helps you find what you hold. Open and download each file, or download everything in your account as one ZIP from your Account page with Email me a copy. If a tenant writes to us instead, we pass the request to you.

At tenancyvaults.co.uk/terms and tenancyvaults.co.uk/privacy, linked in the footer of every page. The privacy notice covers cookies too. Each shows the date it was last updated.