Rent Repayment Orders: claiming your rent back

A Rent Repayment Order makes a landlord pay back rent they have already received. For an unlicensed property let on or after 1 May 2026, the order can be up to 24 months' rent. You apply to a tribunal yourself. Your landlord does not have to be prosecuted first, and you do not need a solicitor.

This page covers what qualifies, what tribunals actually award as opposed to what the cap allows, the deadline that catches most people out, and the exact route to applying.

Which offences qualify

Section 40(3) of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 lists them. The two licensing offences are the most common route, and they are the two PRSCheck can evidence from a postcode.

Control or management of an unlicensed HMOHousing Act 2004 s.72(1)
Control or management of an unlicensed house (selective licensing)Housing Act 2004 s.95(1)
Eviction or harassment of an occupierProtection from Eviction Act 1977 s.1
Using or threatening violence to secure entryCriminal Law Act 1977 s.6
Failure to comply with an improvement noticeHousing Act 2004 s.30
Failure to comply with a prohibition orderHousing Act 2004 s.32
Breach of a banning orderHousing and Planning Act 2016 s.21
Knowingly or recklessly misusing a ground for possessionHousing Act 1988 s.16J(1)
Breach of the re-letting and re-marketing restrictionsHousing Act 1988 s.16J(2)
Continuing breach of the tenancy reform provisionsHousing Act 1988 s.16J(3)

How much you actually get

The cap is 24 months' rent. Almost nobody receives it, and it is worth understanding why before you build your hopes on a headline figure.

The Upper Tribunal set out the method in Acheampong v Roman [2022] UKUT 239 (LC): take the whole rent for the relevant period, subtract any part of it that paid for utilities only you consumed, then decide a percentage reflecting how serious the offence was, then adjust for the section 44(4) factors. In Acheampong itself the tribunal landed on 75% of the rent after utilities.

Section 44(4) requires the tribunal to take into account:

The conduct of the landlord and of the tenant
The financial circumstances of the landlord
Whether the landlord has ever been convicted of an offence to which the rent repayment order provisions apply

A landlord with one property, a clean record and a prompt apology is treated differently from a portfolio landlord who has been penalised before. None of that is visible from a postcode, which is why any estimate is a range.

Work out your range

This uses the Acheampong method and shows every step, including what the cap removes.

Your rent, per month

What you actually paid, your share if you shared.Months the property was unlicensedMonths you lived there while it needed a licence and did not have one.Utilities included in that rent, per month

Gas, electricity, water, internet. Leave at 0 if you paid these separately.The unlicensed period ended before 1 May 2026Tick this and the older 12-month cap applies instead of 24.

Enter your monthly rent and how many months the property was unlicensed to see the range.

More detail, and the worked example, on the full calculator page.

How to apply, step by step

1
Establish that a licence was required
This is the whole claim. A licence was required if the property sat inside a live selective or additional licensing designation, or if it met the mandatory HMO test of five or more people in two or more households. Designations are often drawn street by street, so the address matters, not the town.
2
Establish that no licence was held
Councils keep a public register of licensed properties and must let you inspect it. Ask in writing whether this address held a licence, had an application pending, or held a temporary exemption notice, for each month of your tenancy. Keep the reply.
3
Work out what you paid
The order is capped at the rent you actually paid during the offence. Gather bank statements, the tenancy agreement and any receipts. If housing benefit or the housing element of universal credit covered part of the rent, that part belongs to the council's claim, not yours.
4
Complete Form RRO1 and file it
The application goes to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), Residential Property. An application fee is payable, and the current amount is stated on the form. If you win you can ask the tribunal to order the landlord to reimburse it. Joint tenants on one agreement pay one fee between them.
5
Prepare the bundle
You are proving a criminal offence to a civil tribunal, so present it like evidence: the designation with its dates and the council's own source, the council's reply about the licence, your tenancy agreement, and your rent payment record. Vagueness is what loses these cases.

Step one, free: was your address inside a designated area?

Enter the postcode. We show every live selective, additional and mandatory HMO scheme that could have applied, with the council's own source link.

Free scheme check · £29 for the evidence report

If it was, the £29 evidence report puts the designation, its dates, the council source, your claim worked through the Acheampong method and the Form RRO1 route into one document you can print for the tribunal.

What defeats a claim

Check these before you pay a tribunal fee. Each one means no offence was committed, however clearly the property sat inside a designation.

A licence application was already in (Housing Act 2004 s.72(4), s.95(3)): No offence is committed if an application for a licence had been duly made and was still effective, or a temporary exemption notice was in force, for the whole of the period complained about.
Reasonable excuse (Housing Act 2004 s.72(5), s.95(4)): It is a defence that the landlord had a reasonable excuse for the property being unlicensed. The tribunal decides what counts, and simply not knowing about the scheme has repeatedly failed as an excuse.
The two-year deadline has passed (Housing and Planning Act 2016 s.41): An occupier must apply within 24 months of the offence. For a continuing offence, the last date it was committed must fall inside that window. There is no discretion to extend it.

Common questions

How much can I claim with a rent repayment order?

Up to 24 months' rent for an offence committed on or after 1 May 2026, or 12 months for one that ended before then. The order cannot exceed the rent you actually paid. In practice tribunals award a percentage: they deduct any part of the rent that paid for utilities you alone consumed, then apply a percentage reflecting how serious the offence was, commonly between 40% and 75% for a straightforward licensing breach.

How long do I have to apply?

Two years. Section 41 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 requires an occupier to apply within 24 months of the offence. Where the offence continued over a period, the last date it was committed must fall inside that window. This is a hard deadline.

Does my landlord need to be convicted first?

No. The tribunal can make an order without any conviction or civil penalty having been imposed. But it must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, the criminal standard, that the offence was committed.

Can I still claim if I have moved out?

Yes, as long as you occupied the property while the offence was being committed and you apply within two years of it. Moving out does not end the claim.

Can we claim together if we shared the house?

Yes. Each tenant claims the rent they paid, and a group of sharers can apply over the same unlicensed period using the same designation evidence. Joint tenants on a single agreement pay one application fee; separate agreements mean separate applications and separate fees.

What if my landlord had applied for a licence?

Then no offence was committed for the period the application was effective, under section 72(4) or section 95(3) of the Housing Act 2004, and the claim fails on that period. The same is true where a temporary exemption notice was in force. Check this with the council before you file.

What if the landlord says they did not know about the scheme?

There is a reasonable excuse defence at section 72(5) and section 95(4) of the Housing Act 2004, and the tribunal decides what counts. Simply not knowing a scheme existed has repeatedly failed as an excuse, but it is for the tribunal, not us, to weigh it.

Does this apply in Scotland or Northern Ireland?

No. The licensing offences and the rent repayment order sit in the Housing Act 2004 and the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which extend to England and Wales only. Scotland and Northern Ireland have landlord registration and HMO licensing with their own, different, enforcement routes.

Sources

PRSCheck is an information service based on published council designations and national legislation. It is not legal advice, and nothing here predicts what a tribunal will decide. For advice on your own claim, speak to Shelter, Citizens Advice, a housing solicitor, or your council's private-sector housing team.

Landlord reading this? The same exposure looks different from your side.

Rent Repayment Orders: the landlord's view →