The fee to start a rent repayment order claim in the Property Chamber is £114, with a £227 hearing fee on top. That is the entire financial risk of asking a tribunal to order your landlord to hand back rent you have already paid. The thing most renters get wrong: your landlord does not need to have been convicted of anything. Shelter's legal guidance is explicit that no conviction is required, only that the First-tier Tribunal is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that a qualifying offence was committed. Tenants bring these claims themselves, routinely, without a solicitor.
The other thing people get wrong is the ceiling. It doubled this year.
What the tribunal can order repaid
The rules changed on 1 May 2026, when the first phase of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 amended sections 40 to 45 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Which set applies to you depends on when the offence happened, not when you apply.
| Offence before 1 May 2026 | Offence on or after 1 May 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum award | 12 months' rent | Up to two years' rent |
| Time to apply | Within 12 months of the offence | Within two years of the offence |
| Who can be liable | Your immediate landlord only | Immediate landlord, superior landlords and company directors |
| Award capped by | Rent paid while the offence was being committed | Same |
Source for the mechanics: Shelter's two separate legal pages, one covering orders before 1 May 2026 and one covering orders from that date.
If your landlord's offence straddles the changeover, both sets apply. Shelter gives the worked example of an HMO left unlicensed from 23 March to 23 June 2026: the old rules govern the period to 30 April, the new rules the period from 1 May. That matters if your tenancy started in early 2026 and the licence gap has run on since.
One cap catches people out. The award can never exceed the rent you actually paid during the period the offence was being committed. Solicitors at Anthony Gold have made the point bluntly: if the landlord gets a licence application in three months after you move in, the recoverable period stops there. Which is why tipping off your landlord early can cost you money.
The offences that qualify
Section 40(3) of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 sets the list. In London the workhorses are the licensing offences.
- Controlling or managing an unlicensed HMO, under section 72 of the Housing Act 2004. Mandatory HMO licensing bites where at least five tenants form more than one household and share a kitchen, bathroom or toilet.
- Controlling or managing an unlicensed house, under section 95, which is what catches properties in selective licensing areas and in borough additional licensing schemes for smaller HMOs.
- Illegal eviction or harassment under section 1 of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. Changing the locks, removing your belongings, cutting off the electricity, repeated demands and threatened entry have all featured in tribunal findings.
- Using or threatening violence to secure entry, under the Criminal Law Act 1977.
- Failing to comply with an improvement notice or breaching a prohibition order served by the council under the Housing Act 2004.
- Breach of a banning order.
Three more were added from 1 May 2026. The NRLA's guidance lists them as 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 including failure to provide a written statement of terms, rental discrimination and the rental bidding rules. The misused possession ground is the one to watch now that Section 21 has gone: if your landlord evicted you to move a family member in and the flat reappeared on Rightmove six weeks later, that is a claim.
Check your borough's licensing scheme this week
Licensing in London is borough by borough, ward by ward, and it changes constantly. The Mayor's office publishes a map of every property licensing scheme currently in place in London, and City Hall's own guidance confirms that where your home does not have the correct licence you may be entitled to apply for a rent repayment order.
Do not stop at the map. Recent examples show why. London Property Licensing reported six new selective licensing schemes in Harrow rolling out through 2026, with Roxeth starting on 2 May, Greenhill and Marlborough on 6 July, and Wealdstone North and South on 1 September, and noted that when they checked the council's own postcode checker in April it did not yet include any of them. Croydon's new selective licensing scheme covers all privately rented properties in selected wards, with landlord applications opening on 25 September 2026. Westminster's scheme, according to agents Benhams, covers all wards except Pimlico South, St James' and Vincent Square and took effect on 24 November 2025.
Two things to do this week:
- Search your council's public licensing register by address. Every borough publishes one. Note the licence number, the licence holder's name and the dates. A licence held by a different person from the one taking your rent is worth flagging.
- Email the letting agent in plain terms: "Please confirm whether the property is licensed, the licence number, the name of the licence holder and the date the application was made." An agent that stalls on this question is telling you something. Keep the reply.
A licence application submitted before the tenancy began is a defence, so the application date matters as much as the grant date.
How the tribunal decides the figure
The starting point, following Judge Cooke's reasoning in Vadamalayan and applied since, is the rent itself rather than the landlord's profit. From there the tribunal adjusts.
Where the landlord has been convicted of the offence, or has previously had a rent repayment order made against them for the same offence, Shelter's guidance says the tribunal must award the maximum. Otherwise it has discretion to award less, weighing the seriousness of the offence, the landlord's conduct and financial circumstances, and yours.
Your conduct cuts both ways. Shelter records Upper Tribunal decisions in which arrears were treated as relevant tenant conduct, and in which a reduction was upheld because the occupier had obstructed inspections. In another appeal the Upper Tribunal found the First-tier Tribunal had not properly considered evidence that the landlord was suffering from serious mental health conditions. Awards are also commonly reduced where rent included utilities, on the basis that the landlord was passing on real costs.
Scale varies enormously. In one reported East London decision the maximum available was £3,300, because that was all the rent paid in the offence period. In a Zone 2 flat share at London rents, with four sharers each claiming separately, a full-period award runs into five figures per person.
Evidence to gather before you apply
- The tenancy agreement, and every renewal.
- Bank statements or a rent schedule showing every payment, with dates. This is the single most important document, since it fixes the ceiling.
- Proof of occupation for the exact period: council tax bills, utility accounts, bank statements at that address, GP registration.
- Photographs of shared kitchens and bathrooms, and evidence of how many people lived there and in how many households. Room floorplans from the original advert help.
- The council register printout or search result showing no licence, with the date you checked. Ask the council's licensing team to confirm in writing.
- All correspondence with the landlord and agent, including WhatsApp messages, and any council enforcement notices.
- For harassment or illegal eviction: a dated log, police reference numbers, locksmith invoices, hotel receipts, messages from neighbours.
Get the landlord's correct name and address from the Land Registry title and from your deposit protection certificate. Naming the wrong entity is a common and expensive error, particularly with rent-to-rent arrangements. Read your agreement carefully for who is actually named as landlord, which is one reason it pays to know what to look for in a tenancy agreement.
Applying: the route, the fee and the timetable
Applications go to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber, Residential Property) on the rent repayment order application form, sent to the regional office covering the property. London claims go to the London office. The standard Property Chamber rate is a £114 application fee and a £227 hearing fee, and the new rent repayment order routes created by the Renters' Rights Act were brought into that same structure by the fees order debated in Parliament in April 2026. Ask in your application for the landlord to reimburse those fees.
Joint tenants each apply for their own rent, though claims are usually joined and heard together. Expect a directions order, a deadline for bundles and witness statements, then a hearing. The process is similar in shape to challenging a rent increase at the tribunal, and the tribunal is used to unrepresented tenants.
Councils can also apply where rent was met by Housing Benefit or the Universal Credit housing element, and since 27 December 2025 they have had wider powers to demand documents and inspect, backed by civil penalties of up to £7,000, rising to £40,000 for repeat or serious breaches. A council investigation running alongside your claim is useful evidence, not a reason to wait.
If you have already moved out
You can still claim, provided you occupied the property while the offence was being committed and you apply inside the window. The trap is when the clock started. In Gurusinghe v Drumlin Ltd the twelve-month limitation ran from the termination of the tenancy, and once it expired the tribunal had no jurisdiction to add a further respondent. Former tenants under the old rules therefore have twelve months from the end of the tenancy, not from the day they discovered the problem.
Superior landlords and rent-to-rent
Until this year, the Supreme Court's decision in Rakusen v Jepsen shut this down: a flat leaseholder let to a company, the company sublet the rooms, and the court held a rent repayment order could not be made against the superior landlord because only the person who received the rent can repay it. The Renters' Rights Act reverses that for offences committed on or after 1 May 2026, extending liability up the ownership chain to superior landlords and to company directors.
The practical effect in London is large. If your "landlord" is a company that dissolved the month after you moved out, an offence dated after 1 May 2026 no longer ends your claim there. Find the freeholder or head leaseholder on the Land Registry title and name them too.
If you are still living in an unlicensed flat, resist the urge to confront the agent about the licence before you have your bank statements, your photographs and your dated register search saved somewhere outside the property.