Deposit Protection Service > Claims and disputes > How long does dispute resolution take?
Disputes tend to take much longer than reaching an agreement directly with your tenant. When deciding whether to raise a dispute or accept an offer made by your tenant, you should bear in mind the estimated timeline below. Consider dispute resolution as the final resort.
Day 1
The claim formally enters dispute. We email instructions to the landlord and tenant to collate and submit evidence. Both parties have 14 calendar days from the date of this email to submit their evidence. We don’t routinely request specific items of evidence, so make sure you submit everything relevant to your claim.Day 15
All evidence from the landlord and tenant must be submitted by this date.Day 16
It normally takes around seven calendar days to carry out the pre-adjudication assessment of the evidence. However, if there’s a problem with the evidence, this can take longer. The file won't be passed to the adjudicator until it’s ready for adjudication.Day 23
The dispute is sent to an adjudicator. We aim to resolve the majority of all disputes within 15 days of the adjudicator receiving the case and supporting evidence, however some cases can take longer.Day 42
The adjudicator reaches their decision and communicates the result to our Disputes team.Day 44
Our Disputes team sends details of the adjudicator’s decision to the landlord and tenants. It then takes three to five business days following the decision for payments to be processed and completed by the bank.
These timings are estimated and may be extended in certain circumstances, most often when a query arises regarding the evidence or the claim itself, either during the pre-adjudication assessment or the main adjudication.