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Deposit not protected: the 1-3x counterclaim during possession (2026)

If your landlord never protected your deposit, or never served the prescribed information, you can claim a penalty of 1 to 3 times the deposit. Raised as a counterclaim inside a rent-arrears possession claim, that penalty can be set off against the arrears, which on a Ground 8 case can pull the debt below the mandatory threshold. Here is the plain-English walkthrough with a counterclaim paragraph and a worked set-off calculation.