More than half of tenants (53%) admit they never check to see if their deposits have been put in a protection scheme, with 47% believing that they have not been protected.

Just over a quarter (26%) say they do not know.

In a survey by the flatshare website Spareroom, which drew 1,649 responses online, 16% of sharers and prospective sharers said they had never even heard of deposit protection schemes.

Some 13% of tenants said they had have submitted dispute claims through a tenancy deposit scheme.

According to the survey, the outcome was almost evenly split: 48% of tenants won their claim while 52% said their landlord won the dispute.