By Tony Booth

The three tenancy deposit protection (TDP) schemes have been up-and-running for four months now and, despite a few teething problems, landlords and agents seem to be slowly getting to grip with the new rules.

However, the procedure for joint-tenants seems to have caused a hiccup, because there is no common standard across all TDP schemes for how their deposit funds will be treated.

All assured shorthold joint-tenancies that began after 6th April 2007 are affected by the new TDP rules, but it transpires that different methods are being employed by the schemes when it comes to refunding the joint-tenants' deposits.

This has lead to chaos and confusion amongst tenants, landlords and letting agents - and the situation has been exacerbated by operational problems as each of the three schemes were launched.