What is the best way to register a Joint Tenancy deposit?

Tenancy Deposits

Hello,

I am about to issue a Joint Assured Shorthold Tenancy to 4 tenants, and they will be on an initial fixed term of 1 year. They will each pay to me a portion of the deposit, ie if the deposit for the whole property is £2000 they will pay £500 each.

I am a flexible landlord and I allow individual tenant changes during the fixed term, on the condition that the leaving member of the Joint Tenancy replaces themselves with another suitable housemate.

So bearing in mind that there is the possibility that an individual member of the Joint Tenancy may change during the fixed term, I am wondering what is the best way to handle the registration of the deposit?

I intend to use the Insured Scheme with the Deposit Protection Service and I am wondering if I should register the deposit as a whole single amount and nominate a lead tenant? Or should I register the 4 portions of the deposit individually under each tenants name, making each tenant the lead tenant for their own portion of the deposit?

I have spoken to the Deposit Protections Service on the phone and they have suggested to me that I should register the 4 portions of the deposit individually. Their reason being that if the deposit was registered as a whole and there was an individual tenant change that there is no facility to simply change out an individual tenant on their system. They said that the entire deposit registration would have to be closed and refunded to all members of the joint tenancy and then completely started again and re-registered just to take into account the individual tenant change.

If the 4 portions of the deposit are indeed registered individually, are they still viewed as a whole single deposit for the property, as per the Joint Tenancy agreement? If hypothetically one tenant caused a large amount of damage that was more than their portion of the deposit, can the remaining portions of the deposit that have been registered individually still be called upon to cover the damages, as per the contract? Or has the individual registration negated this?

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Rob