Two numbers frame this whole subject. Applying to the First-tier Tribunal for a rent repayment order costs £114, plus a £227 hearing fee if it goes to a hearing. The maximum award, for offences committed on or after 1 May 2026, is two years' rent. That is the widest gap between filing cost and potential recovery anywhere in English housing law, and the most common trigger is not damp, disrepair or a dodgy deposit. It is a missing licence.
What a rent repayment order is
A rent repayment order (RRO) is an order from the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) requiring a landlord to pay back rent you have already handed over. It sits in Chapter 4 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016, and it has one feature that makes it unusually accessible: your landlord does not need to have been convicted of anything. Government guidance on the 2016 Act is explicit that an RRO can be applied for whether or not there has been a conviction. The tribunal simply has to be satisfied, to the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt, that the offence was committed.
You apply as the occupier. You recover the rent you personally paid. If part of your rent was met by housing benefit or the housing costs element of universal credit, the council can claim that share, and the award is split proportionately. The National Residential Landlords Association's own guidance spells this out for landlords: each applicant recovers only the money they actually paid.
The offences that qualify
Section 40(3) of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 sets out the list. Before the Renters' Rights Act it ran to seven offences:
| Offence | Statute |
|---|---|
| Violence for securing entry | s6(1) Criminal Law Act 1977 |
| Illegal eviction or harassment of occupiers | s1(2), (3), (3A) Protection from Eviction Act 1977 |
| Failure to comply with an improvement notice | s30(1) Housing Act 2004 |
| Failure to comply with a prohibition order | s32(1) Housing Act 2004 |
| Control or management of an unlicensed HMO | s72(1) Housing Act 2004 |
| Control or management of an unlicensed house | s95(1) Housing Act 2004 |
| Breach of a banning order | s21 Housing and Planning Act 2016 |
The two licensing offences, sections 72(1) and 95(1), are the workhorses. They do not require you to prove anyone behaved badly. They require you to prove that a licence was needed and that there wasn't one.
The Renters' Rights Act added more from 1 May 2026. The NRLA lists them as including knowingly or recklessly misusing a ground for possession, letting or marketing a property during the restricted period after using the moving-in or selling ground, and continuing breaches of the new tenancy rules such as failing to provide a written statement of terms, rental discrimination and the rental bidding rules. Those three sit in section 16J of the Housing Act 1988 and only bite on conduct from 1 May 2026 onwards. There is no retrospective claim for a landlord who ran a bidding war in 2025.
What changed on 1 May 2026
The commencement order is S.I. 2026/421, and the changes are substantial:
- The cap doubled. Shelter's legal guidance and the NRLA both confirm the maximum moved from 12 months' rent to two years' rent for offences committed on or after 1 May 2026. For offences committed entirely before that date, the old 12 month ceiling still applies, even where the landlord offended for longer or committed more than one offence.
- The deadline doubled. Shelter states that an occupier can apply where the offence relates to housing they occupied at the time and was committed within the two years before the application is made. Previously it was one year.
- Liability runs up the chain. Under section 40(2) as amended, an order can require "the landlord or superior landlord who committed the offence" to pay. Shelter notes that for offences before 1 May 2026 an order could only be made against the immediate landlord, and not against a company director where the company was the landlord. The Independent Landlord's analysis puts it plainly: superior landlords can now be ordered to repay even where the rent reached them through an agent or intermediary, reversing the Supreme Court's decision in Rakusen v Jepsen, and liability extends personally to directors and managing officers responsible for the offence. Landlords are jointly and severally liable, so if the rent-to-rent company folds, the claim does not die with it.
- Repeat offenders lose the discretion argument. Where the conditions are met, the maximum award becomes mandatory rather than a starting point for negotiation.
Alongside this, councils gained investigatory powers from 27 December 2025, according to Ashurst's summary of the Act, plus civil penalties of up to £7,000 for a first breach and up to £40,000 for serious or repeated ones. Those penalties go to the council, not to you. The RRO is your route.
Proving a licensing gap
This is the part you can do this week, and it takes about an hour.
Step one: work out which regime applies. Mandatory HMO licensing covers properties with five or more occupants from two or more households, and it applies borough-wide everywhere in England. Additional licensing extends that to smaller HMOs, typically shared houses and flats with three or four people, where a borough has designated one. Selective licensing covers ordinary single-household lets in designated areas. Havering's additional scheme, in force from 18 March 2026, even reaches section 257 HMOs: buildings converted into self-contained flats where the conversion did not meet the building regulations of the day, less than two thirds are owner-occupied, and the whole building is in one ownership and wholly privately rented. If your Victorian terrace was carved into four flats in 1987 by the person who still owns all four, that clause is worth reading twice.
Step two: check the borough's public register. Every council must maintain one under the Housing Act 2004. Search by address, not by landlord name, because the licence holder is often a company you have never heard of. Note the licence number, the holder and the expiry date. A licence that expired in the middle of your tenancy creates a period of offence for the months after expiry.
Step three: cross-check the Mayor of London's rogue landlord and agent checker. It records landlords and agents who have been prosecuted or given civil penalties by London councils. A hit there does not by itself win your case, but it tells the tribunal the offence was not a one-off oversight, and it may point you to a conviction you can rely on.
Step four: nail down what you paid. Bank statements for the whole tenancy, the tenancy agreement, and any messages about rent increases. If you pay through an app, export the full payment history now rather than after you have lost access to the account. Our piece on rent payment apps and open banking covers what those records actually show and what they leave out.
What to say to the agent. Ask one question in writing: "Please confirm whether the property is licensed under the borough's mandatory, additional or selective licensing scheme, and provide the licence number and expiry date." Keep it neutral. An agent's written "no licence is required" is useful evidence if the register says otherwise, and a sudden flurry of licence applications after your email is useful too, because a licence granted late does not erase the earlier offence.
Boroughs to check first
Schemes change constantly, so treat any list as a prompt to check the council's own page rather than gospel. Recent London activity, as tracked by London Property Licensing and the councils themselves:
- Westminster, selective licensing across all wards except Pimlico South, St James's and Vincent Square, effective 24 November 2025.
- Havering, additional and selective licensing from 18 March 2026, running five years, with the additional scheme borough-wide.
- Croydon, a 2026 selective licensing scheme, with an additional HMO licensing designation made on 25 March 2026.
- Harrow, six new selective licensing areas designated on 2 February 2026 and rolled out in stages: a replacement scheme and a new Roxeth scheme from 2 May 2026, Greenhill from 6 July 2026. The consultation drew 74 responses from residents and 31 from landlords and agents, with 57% supporting licensing.
- Ealing and Greenwich were both consulting during 2026, Ealing on additional HMO licensing (open until 24 September 2026) and Greenwich on selective licensing (open until 12 October 2026).
Rents and schemes do not map neatly onto each other, so do not assume the cheaper end of the areas young professionals actually move to is licensed and the expensive end is not. Westminster's scheme should settle that.
If you have already moved out
You can still apply. The test is whether the offence relates to housing you occupied at the time it was committed, and whether it happened within the two years before your application. So a tenancy that ended in early 2026 is very likely still live for a claim, and the clock is the offence date, not your move-out date.
Two practical consequences. First, if you left a shared house in the last 18 months and never checked the licence, check it now, because the window closes quietly. Second, former flatmates each apply for their own share, so co-ordinate: a joint application from four tenants against the same landlord is far more efficient than four separate ones, and tribunals routinely hear them together.
How the tribunal calculates the award
The controlling authority is Acheampong v Roman [2022] UKUT 239 (LC), which set out a four-stage approach the First-tier Tribunal still applies:
- Ascertain the whole of the rent for the relevant period.
- Subtract any part of that which paid for utilities benefiting only the tenant, such as gas, electricity and internet.
- Consider how serious the offence was, compared with other offence types and with other examples of the same offence.
- Adjust up or down for the other section 44(4) factors: landlord and tenant conduct, and the landlord's financial circumstances.
The deductions are real but usually modest. In Acheampong itself the tribunal deducted £4 per person per week for utilities, and made a 10% reduction for one tenant's conduct. In the joined appeal, the Upper Tribunal settled on 75% of rent after utilities for an unlicensed HMO that was serious but not the worst of its kind. Plan on a percentage of net rent, not a full refund, unless your landlord has already been convicted or fined.
A few things that reliably reduce awards: rent arrears on your side, damage, antisocial behaviour, and a landlord who applied for a licence promptly once told. A pending application or a temporary exemption notice can defeat the claim outright for the period it covers.
What it realistically costs and returns
The fee position was confirmed in Parliament in April 2026, when ministers introduced the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) Fees (Amendment) Order 2026: the new RRO routes created by the Renters' Rights Act attract the existing £114 application fee and £227 hearing fee. Fee remission is available on certain benefits. You do not need a solicitor, and costs are rarely awarded against a losing applicant, which is why RROs are one of the few housing claims a tenant can sensibly run alone.
The award is enforceable as a county court debt, which matters more than it sounds. Winning and collecting are different exercises, particularly against a rent-to-rent intermediary. The change that runs liability up to superior landlords and directors exists precisely because so many earlier winners collected nothing.
Councils also have power to help occupiers apply, including by conducting proceedings on your behalf. Ask your borough's private rented sector team. In a borough with an active licensing scheme, they may already hold the evidence you need, and they have every incentive to see the case brought.