New build deposit claim clauses

Short answer: managing a luxury central-London new-build is a different operational discipline from managing a flat in a Victorian conversion, and most of what makes it different is invisible at the point of instruction. The work compounds across four areas — purpose-drafted tenancy clauses that make communal-bill arrears actually recoverable at adjudication; annual servicing on a Heat Interface Unit, MVHR system and any in-flat HVAC; statutory fire door inspections under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022; and a specialist contractor network that knows the building. A generic letting agent treats the property as "just a flat", loses landlord money at end-of-tenancy adjudications, and leaves the landlord exposed to enforcement action on fire safety. This post sets out what we actually do.

Why luxury new-build compliance is its own specialism

A typical Victorian conversion in zone 2 has one gas boiler, one electricity meter, one water supply, one solid front door with a Yale lock. Maintenance is routine. Compliance is the standard Gas Safety / EICR / EPC / smoke alarm / CO alarm stack.

A typical new-build luxury apartment in zone 1 or 2 has none of those things and a great many other things instead. A Heat Interface Unit drawing heat from a building-wide plant room. A Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) system with replaceable filters that need changing on a defined cadence. Often a comfort cooling system or full HVAC. An FD30S-rated fire door at the entrance, regulated under post-Grenfell legislation. Communal hot water, communal cooling, sometimes communal smart-home systems. A concierge to coordinate access. A managing agent overseeing the building. A block of fifty to several hundred other flats with the same systems competing for the same specialist contractors.

The compliance footprint is bigger, the maintenance cadence is more demanding, and the legal liability for getting it wrong is sharper. Three statutory frameworks layer onto the standard tenancy regime — Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 on fire doors, the Building Safety Act 2022 on building-level safety case duties (above 11m), and the forthcoming Awaab's Law on hazard response from 2027 — each of which adds an inspection-and-evidence burden that doesn't apply on traditional stock. Generic letting agents don't have the procedural muscle for this. Specialist new-build agents do, because they have to.

Clauses 8.7–8.10 — the tenancy provisions that make communal-bill recovery work

The default adjudicator position at end-of-tenancy is that unpaid utility bills are a matter between the tenant and the supplier, not deposit-claimable. The reasoning is sensible in the traditional case: the tenant has a direct contract with British Gas; if they don't pay, that's between them and the supplier; the landlord's deposit is not the recovery mechanism.

On a new-build communal-heat block, this default produces the wrong answer. The heat-network supplier contracts with the leaseholder (under the head lease), not with the tenant. When the tenant under-tops the meter or runs up an unpaid balance, the bill accrues against the leaseholder's account. The landlord pays the heat-network provider, and the landlord has to recover from the tenant. Without the right tenancy clauses, the adjudicator applies the traditional default — "this is between tenant and supplier" — and the landlord loses.

We've built four specific clauses into our standard Goodlord-templated tenancy (drafted by Spector Constant & Williams) to flip this outcome. They consistently pay out at adjudication where the generic-tenancy version would not.

Clause 8.7 — Heating Meter, Pre-Payment, Evidence, and Refund Safeguard Clause. The substantive provisions: the communal pre-paid heating meter (heat, hot water, cooling) operates on a pre-paid basis and may go into negative; the tenant is responsible for topping it up; any deficit is deductible from the security deposit; the landlord provides regular meter-balance updates. Crucially, the clause acknowledges that adjudication may follow and sets out a procedural framework — if the evidence is limited (e.g. "only a picture of the top-up meter that does not clearly highlight the tenant's details"), both parties agree to cooperate to provide additional evidence. And the fairness safeguard: "if, despite best efforts, the adjudicator continues to find insufficient evidence, the tenant's security deposit shall be refunded the full amount of the disputed heating, hot water, cooling, or other utility related expenses." This is the unusual provision that makes adjudicators comfortable awarding the claim where evidence is reasonable — the contract has already built in the right outcome if evidence is genuinely thin, so adjudicators aren't asked to ratify a one-sided claim.

Clause 8.8 — Heating, Hot Water, Cooling, and Utility Bills Responsibility Clause. This is the operational backbone. Tenant must transfer the account into their name from the start of the tenancy. For pre-payment, tenant must keep the meter topped up; for post-payment, tenant must pay all invoices in full and on time. Payment plans with the provider are not accepted under the tenancy. If the provider changes mid-tenancy, the tenant must transfer to the new account immediately. If the tenant fails to transfer or pay and the landlord is charged, the full amount is deductible from the deposit. Fourteen days to settle the residual; legal action thereafter.

Clause 8.9 — Access for Essential Heating and Hot Water Maintenance Inspections. Tenant agrees to provide access for HIU servicing — the in-flat Heat Interface Unit that draws from the communal supply. Reasonable notice; routine inspection at no cost to the tenant; if access is repeatedly denied, the landlord can recover reasonable enforcement costs. This is the operational basis for the annual HIU servicing cadence below.

Clause 8.10 — Access for Fire Door Safety Inspections. Tenant agrees to provide access for periodic fire door inspections (the flat front door under FSE Regs 2022, plus any internal fire doors). Reasonable notice; the landlord covers the cost of any required remedial work; the tenant cooperates with follow-up inspections. This is the operational basis for the fire door regime below.

The clauses do not exist in the generic Assured Shorthold Tenancy or in most off-the-shelf tenancy templates. They are the product of a decade of adjudication outcomes on managed-block stock, drafted into the tenancy specifically to make recovery work.

Heat Interface Units — annual servicing, why it matters

A Heat Interface Unit is the in-flat appliance that draws heat from the communal plant room and routes it to the radiators and the hot water cylinder. It is functionally equivalent to a gas boiler from the tenant's perspective — same controls, same hot water and heating output — but mechanically and contractually different. There's no gas; there's no annual Gas Safety check (because there's no gas appliance in the flat); there's no national-grid utility account. There is a heat exchanger, a pump, a control board, and a network of pipework that connects to the building's plant room.

HIUs need servicing annually. Different manufacturers (Danfoss, Thermal Integration, Hamworthy, SAV Systems and others) have different service requirements, but the common thread is filter changes, pressure checks, and a control-board diagnostic. Routine annual servicing typically takes 45-60 minutes per unit and costs significantly less than the cost of a failed HIU mid-tenancy. A failed HIU produces no heating, no hot water, and (under Awaab's Law from 2027 in the private rented sector) a Category 1 hazard with a statutory response deadline. Skipping the annual service is one of the cheapest false economies in new-build management.

We coordinate HIU servicing through our specialist contractor network — engineers who know the specific HIU type in the specific building, who can get parts on a same-day basis, and who have an existing relationship with the building's energy services provider for any escalation. A generic plumber called out to a failed HIU will not know how to bleed the system, will misdiagnose pressure faults, and will frequently make the problem worse before getting it right.

MVHR — the filter no-one changes

Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery is standard in new-build flats above a certain build standard (most are Part L compliant at the higher level). The MVHR unit sits in a service cupboard, ducted to every habitable room, and continuously extracts stale air while drawing in fresh air, recovering heat from the outgoing stream to pre-warm the incoming stream. It is the reason the flat doesn't have noisy extractor fans in every bathroom and kitchen, and why the indoor air quality is materially better than in a conventional flat.

It also has two filters that need changing or cleaning every 6-12 months depending on the manufacturer specification. When the filters block, the unit either fails outright or runs at reduced efficiency drawing dust and pollen straight into the flat. Generic agents don't know the MVHR is there, don't know it needs servicing, and don't have the filters in stock. The tenant complains about a "stuffy" or "dusty" flat; the agent shrugs; the landlord eventually pays for a replacement unit when the failed motor seizes.

We schedule MVHR filter changes alongside the annual HIU service to amortise the contractor visit. Filter cost is typically £15-40 per pair; the labour to change them is 10 minutes if you know where the service hatch is. Doing it right is cheap; not doing it produces the slow degradation a tenant will eventually move because of.

HVAC and comfort cooling — the silent compliance area

A growing proportion of central-London luxury apartments have full HVAC or comfort cooling — a VRF (variable refrigerant flow) system distributing cooled air via ducted cassettes or ceiling units, or a simple split system in the master bedroom. These need their own servicing cadence — filter cleans, refrigerant checks, condensate drain clearance — typically annual but in some cases six-monthly for higher-spec systems.

The fluorinated greenhouse gas (F-Gas) regulations require any refrigerant work to be carried out by F-Gas certified engineers. A generic local plumber cannot lawfully top up the refrigerant. A failed split system in August in a south-facing top-floor flat produces an uninhabitable tenancy under HHSRS criteria (excess heat is a Category 1 hazard); the cost of an emergency F-Gas engineer at three days' notice is several multiples of the cost of a planned annual service.

We coordinate HVAC servicing through certified specialists. The annual visit is bundled into the same window as HIU and MVHR work where possible.

Fire doors — the post-Grenfell regulatory shift

The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 made the management of fire doors in multi-occupied residential buildings a statutory duty. The duties land on the Responsible Person under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005: for the common parts that's the building owner or block managing agent; for the flat front door that's the leaseholder.

The leaseholder (and therefore the landlord, for any let property) has a duty to:

Provide access for quarterly fire door inspections in blocks over 11m
Provide access for annual fire door inspections in blocks under 11m
Maintain the flat front door to FD30S standard (30-minute fire resistance, smoke-sealed)
Ensure self-closing mechanisms are functional
Remedy any defects that compromise compartmentation

The flat front door is not a generic door. It is fire-rated, intumescent-strip-sealed, and self-closing. Replacing a damaged FD30S door is a specialist job — not just any joiner — and getting it wrong invalidates the building's fire strategy.

A generic letting agent treats the flat front door as "the tenant's door" and never inspects. The landlord remains liable. The Responsible Person can serve enforcement notices and (under the FSO 2005) criminal liability attaches to failures that contribute to a fire fatality. Building Safety Act 2022 reinforces this with additional duties for buildings above 18m (the higher-risk residential buildings regime under Part 4 of the Act).

We bake fire door inspections into our annual compliance cycle. Clause 8.10 gives us the contractual basis for access; our compliance calendar tracks the inspection cadence per building; our contractor network includes FD30S-trained joiners who can replace or repair damaged doors to spec, with the right documentation to satisfy the building's safety case.

The communal-bill deposit-claim mechanic — how it actually plays out

Bringing the clauses together with an actual end-of-tenancy scenario:

During the tenancy. Tenant tops up the heat meter via the building app. Tenant under-tops in winter. Meter goes into negative. Landlord (via Lettspay) receives monthly bills from the heat-network provider showing the consumption and the negative balance. Landlord (via HWJ) sends the tenant regular meter-balance updates (clause 8.7 procedural step).
End of tenancy. Tenant moves out. Final meter reading shows a £600 unpaid balance. Landlord submits a deposit claim including the £600 communal-heat arrears as a specific deduction, citing clauses 8.7 and 8.8.
Tenant disputes. Tenant refers to the deposit scheme adjudicator (TDS / MyDeposits / DPS). Generic letting agents at this point usually lose the claim. The adjudicator applies the default "this is between tenant and supplier" position and rejects the deduction.
What happens with our clauses. Adjudicator reads clause 8.8 §3.3: "If the landlord is charged for any heating, hot water, cooling, or related utilities due to the tenant's failure to transfer or pay, the full amount will be deducted from the tenant's security deposit." That's the contractual basis. Reads clause 8.7's evidence framework. Reads the documentation pack we submit — the heat-network provider's invoices in the landlord's name, the tenancy clauses, the regular meter-balance update emails, the final meter reading. Awards the deduction.
Fairness safeguard. If our evidence is genuinely thin — for example, the supplier's invoices don't itemise consumption clearly — clause 8.7's safeguard kicks in and the tenant is refunded. The contract isn't an asymmetric recovery tool; it's a procedural framework that lets adjudicators do the right thing on the evidence available.

Across the managed-block portfolio, this pattern has consistently paid out where the generic-tenancy version would not. The cost of getting it wrong scales with portfolio size. For a landlord with 5 units in a building, the difference is £3,000-£10,000 per cycle of recovered-versus-unrecoverable arrears.

The specialist contractor network

The work above only happens if you have specialist contractors who know the building, know the systems, and can mobilise on the right timeline. We maintain working relationships with:

HIU servicing engineers across the major manufacturer ecosystems
MVHR installers and filter suppliers for the most common unit types
F-Gas certified HVAC engineers for comfort cooling and full HVAC
FD30S-trained joiners for fire door repair and replacement
Block managing agents across every development where we have units (for access permissions and cross-demise issues)
The building's energy services provider for heat-network billing escalation

This network does not transfer with a single instruction. It is built through years of new-build management, and it is the difference between an annual compliance round that runs in the background and a compliance round that produces six-week tenant downtime per issue.

Where to look next

This post is the specialist compliance anchor of our four-post New Build series. The other posts go deeper on adjacent areas:

What's distinct about new-build lettings in London — the anchor post for the series.
How utility management works on a London new-build — communal heating, prepayment meters, Bills Included.
The line between developer snagging and agent maintenance — developer warranty vs. agent procurement scope.
Pricing a new-build first let when comparables are thin — the valuation methodology for new-build first lets.

For the wider operational positioning, see New-Build Specialists. For the post-RRA repairing-obligation framework that underpins the Awaab's Law dimension of fire and HIU compliance, see Awaab's Law and the Decent Homes Standard. For the management-fee architecture that covers all the inspection and servicing work described above, see Landlords — how our 10% fee works and Property Management.

Sources

Essential Terms and Charges v2.1.5 — §44 New Build Handover & Key Collection; §47 [REPAIR-001] Procurement; §47.5 [REPAIR-001-A] Emergency Maintenance Float; §64 [UTIL-002] Service Charges, Ground Rent, Utility Bills; §65 [UTIL-003] Bills Included.
HWJ Tenancy Special Conditions — clauses 8.7 (Heating Meter, Pre-Payment, Evidence, and Refund Safeguard Clause); 8.8 (Heating, Hot Water, Cooling, and Utility Bills Responsibility Clause); 8.9 (Access for Essential Heating and Hot Water Maintenance Inspections); 8.10 (Access for Fire Door Safety Inspections). Goodlord-templated, drafted by Spector Constant & Williams.
Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 — quarterly and annual fire door inspection duties.
Fire Safety Act 2021 — extension of FSO 2005 to the structure, external walls and flat entrance doors of multi-occupied residential buildings.
Building Safety Act 2022 — higher-risk residential buildings regime (Part 4), Accountable Person duties for buildings above 18m.
Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 — Responsible Person duties and enforcement.
BS 8214:2016 (timber fire doors) and BS EN 1634-1 (fire door testing) — the technical standards underlying FD30S certification.
F-Gas Regulations (EU 517/2014 as retained) — certification requirements for refrigerant work on HVAC systems.
Housing Act 2004 — Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS).
Renters' Rights Act 2025 — Awaab's Law amendments to HA2004 (sections 2A and 2B), in force for the private rented sector from 2027.
Tenancy deposit scheme adjudicator practice — TDS, MyDeposits, DPS published case studies on utility-bill claims and communal-systems deductions.

This post reflects Harvey W James' operational approach to specialist compliance management on luxury London new-build apartments and the contractual architecture we use to make recovery work at deposit adjudication. It is not legal advice. For the published Act text refer to legislation.gov.uk; for warranty-specific advice consult the warranty provider directly; for your specific situation seek independent legal advice. Last reviewed against Essential Terms and Charges v2.1.5 (7 May 2026) and HWJ Tenancy Special Conditions current as at May 2026.

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