The majority of people who’ve rented a property in the past five years have failed to get their full deposit back after vacating, new research by London removals firm Kiwi Movers has revealed.

The company found that 52% of the tenants surveyed said that they had experienced difficulties with their landlord when it came to the return of the deposit, with 6% losing their entire deposit - the equivalent to 252,000 deposits being fully withheld over the past five years - and 46% losing part of their deposit.

The firm reports: ‘Extrapolated against the number of rented properties in the UK (4.2m) and the UK average monthly rent of £716, that’s the equivalent of £40m a year for the past five years.

‘One in five (20%) said they got their full deposit back without any problems while over a quarter (28%) said they managed to get their deposit back in full only after a dispute with the landlord or letting agency.’

London is the deposit dispute hotspot, with residents in the capital almost twice as likely (11%) as the survey average (6%) to lose their whole deposit, while tenants aged between 18 and 24 living with friends - as opposed to living with a partner or spouse, living alone or with people they didn’t know prior to moving in - are most likely to lose their full deposit.