The areas where landlords face the most challenges with deposits have been revealed, with Oxford leading the way.

Oxford saw 590 average monthly Google searches being made around the topic in the city per 100,000 residents.

Moving platform Getamover.co.uk analysed data during the past year for 519 search terms related to deposits and deposit protection schemes in 78 areas of the UK.

The terms included ‘tenancy deposit scheme’, ‘deposit refund process’, and ‘deposit protection scheme’.

Salford was ranked second, with 552 average monthly searches related to deposits, while Bournemouth was third, with 544.

It was followed by Reading, Leeds, Bristol, Manchester, Hove, Newcastle and Plymouth.

Rotherham had the fewest issues with deposits, with only 96 searches per 100,000.

David Burrows, of Getamover.co.uk, said deposits can lead to significant stress if things go wrong.

He explained that it’s a sensitive topic and many parts of the process can cause conflict, from saving for a deposit to settling it at the end of a tenancy.

“We wanted to see if we could identify where in the UK was having the most trouble with deposits and deposit schemes, and found Oxford ranked top,” he added.

“While it may seem that student populations drive this trend, many areas with large student populations, such as Cambridge, are among the lowest in the rankings.

“Therefore, the question remains as to what drives these deposit-related searches the most.”

To drill down into the data, the platform found the most popular search terms in Google Keyword Planner related to tenancy deposit protection schemes, the monthly average search volume for each term in each UK area and then compared the total number of monthly average searches against the area’s population.