Your landlord has been breaking the law, you have paid rent every month, and now you are wondering whether you can get some of that money back. The answer, in the right circumstances, is yes. A rent repayment order lets you recover up to 2 years of rent from a landlord who has committed certain offences, without needing a criminal conviction against them first.
But the grounds matter. The First-tier Tribunal will only make an order if you can show the landlord committed one of the specific offences listed in the Housing and Planning Act 2016, as updated by the Renters' Rights Act 2025. The list has expanded in recent years, and from 1 May 2026 it covers more situations than most tenants realise.
This article sets out exactly which offences qualify, who can bring a claim, and what evidence the tribunal expects to see. If you want a quick check on whether your situation fits before reading further, Remedy offers a free instant assessment of your landlord and property that covers RRO eligibility specifically.
What offences qualify for a rent repayment order in the UK?
The Housing and Planning Act 2016 created the modern rent repayment order regime and listed the offences that can trigger one. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 extended that list. As of 2026, the qualifying offences are:
- Operating an unlicensed HMO under section 72(1) of the Housing Act 2004
- Operating unlicensed premises in a selective licensing area under section 95(1) of the Housing Act 2004
- Failing to comply with an improvement notice under section 30 of the Housing Act 2004
- Failing to comply with a prohibition order under section 32 of the Housing Act 2004
- Illegal eviction or harassment under section 1 of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977
- Using violence to secure entry under section 6 of the Criminal Law Act 1977
- Breaching a banning order made under the Housing and Planning Act 2016
- Knowingly or recklessly misusing a possession ground (new, in force 1 May 2026), for example serving a Ground 1 or Ground 1A notice with no genuine intention to move in or sell
- Re-letting or re-marketing the property within 12 months of using a moving-in or selling ground to evict you (new, in force 1 May 2026)
The Act also creates two further grounds tied to the landlord ombudsman scheme and the Private Rented Sector database, but neither is in force yet, because neither service has launched. Once they go live, staying outside them becomes a qualifying offence too.
Before the Renters' Rights Act 2025, an RRO was primarily a tool for HMO licensing failures. Now it also reaches wrongful possession: a landlord who fakes a reason to evict you and then re-lets the property is exposed.
Put simply, if your landlord skipped a licensing requirement, tried to force you out unlawfully, or faked a possession ground and re-let, you have a potential ground. You do not need to identify which offence category applies with legal precision at the assessment stage. You need enough facts to make a credible case.
For a detailed breakdown of how these offences connect to specific claims, see our guide on how to apply for a rent repayment order in the UK.
Who can apply for a rent repayment order?
Two categories of applicant can bring an RRO claim: the tenant who paid the rent, and the local housing authority for the area. The scheme described here applies to housing in England. Wales runs its own separate regime, so a Welsh tenant cannot use this route.
If you are a tenant, you can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) yourself. You do not need to be a current tenant. Former tenants can bring claims too, provided the application is made in time. That means within 2 years of the offence ending for offences committed on or after 1 May 2026, or 12 months for earlier offences. That time limit is strict. If your landlord's licensing breach ended more than two years ago and you have not applied yet, the tribunal is unlikely to entertain a late application.
The tenant does not need to prove that the landlord was convicted of the relevant offence. The tribunal applies the criminal standard of proof, meaning it must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the offence occurred, but that is an internal tribunal assessment. You are not relying on a prior prosecution.
For claims involving housing benefit or universal credit, the local authority can apply for the order in its own name, recovering the housing element of benefit paid. This is separate from any claim you bring as a tenant.
One common misconception is about subtenants and lodgers. Subtenants can qualify in some circumstances, because the test is whether you were a tenant who paid rent in connection with the tenancy the offence related to. A lodger is usually a licensee rather than a tenant, and a live-in landlord's home is not normally a licensable HMO, so lodgers are generally outside the RRO route. If your situation involves a more complex arrangement, Remedy's landlord and property assessment checks your specific setup rather than giving you a generic answer.
How much rent can a tribunal award back?
The maximum an RRO can recover is 2 years of rent for offences committed on or after 1 May 2026, or 12 months for offences before that date. That figure is calculated from the rent you paid during the period the offence was ongoing, not your total tenancy length.
For a tenant paying £1,500 per month, a single successful claim can reach up to £36,000 over a two-year offence, or up to £18,000 where the 12-month cap applies. The tribunal awards a proportion of that ceiling based on the seriousness of the offence.
The tribunal has discretion over the amount. It will not automatically award the maximum. Factors it weighs include:
- The seriousness of the offence
- Whether the landlord has a history of non-compliance
- Whether the tenant caused or contributed to the situation in any way
- The landlord's financial circumstances
In practice, tribunals have awarded anywhere from a few hundred pounds to the full maximum, depending on the facts. An unlicensed HMO that the landlord knew about for years, in a property with maintenance failures and no gas safety certificate, attracts a higher award than a landlord who missed a selective licensing registration date by a few weeks and remedied it promptly.
The doubled 2-year maximum applies to every qualifying offence committed on or after 1 May 2026, however serious. Where a continuing offence such as an unlicensed HMO straddles that date, the old 12-month rules govern the part of the period before 1 May 2026 and the new rules the part on or after it. Exactly how the two caps combine for a single continuing offence is still being worked out by the tribunals, so treat any figure spanning the changeover as an estimate.
What evidence does the tribunal expect to see?
The tribunal standard is beyond reasonable doubt, which is higher than the civil standard of balance of probabilities. This trips up a lot of RRO applicants who assume housing claims are assessed on the civil standard used in disrepair or deposit cases. They are not.
That said, beyond reasonable doubt does not mean a smoking gun. It means the tribunal must be genuinely sure the offence happened. Documentary evidence, council records, and the landlord's own communications often meet that threshold.
For an unlicensed HMO claim, you need to show:
- The property was an HMO (shared with unrelated people, shared facilities)
- It required a licence
- No licence was in force during the period you are claiming for
Council licensing registers are publicly searchable. If the property is not on the register, that is strong evidence. Remedy's landlord and property assessment runs exactly this check as part of its free service.
For illegal eviction or harassment, you need a record of what happened: texts, emails, photographs of changed locks, a contemporaneous diary, witness statements from other occupants. The stronger the paper trail, the stronger the claim.
For new Renters' Rights Act offences like ombudsman non-membership or database non-registration, you can check the relevant public register directly. Non-appearance on the register is the evidence.
Assemble everything into a tribunal bundle before filing. The First-tier Tribunal will expect your evidence to be organised, paginated, and cross-referenced to your application. If you have not done this before, the RRO1 form step-by-step guide covers exactly how the bundle should be structured.
Can you claim if your landlord was never prosecuted?
Yes. The absence of a criminal prosecution does not block an RRO application. The tribunal makes its own finding on whether the offence occurred.
This matters more than it sounds. Local councils prosecute relatively few landlords for licensing breaches. A landlord can operate an unlicensed HMO for years without being charged with anything. The RRO route exists precisely because tenant recovery should not depend on local authority enforcement priorities.
The tribunal will consider the same facts a criminal court would, but it reaches its own conclusion. It can find the offence proven even where no prosecution was brought, and even where a prosecution was brought but did not result in conviction, provided the evidence before the tribunal is sufficient.
A prior conviction helps in one situation. If the landlord has already been convicted of the relevant offence in a criminal court, the tribunal can treat that conviction as conclusive proof. You do not need to re-prove the underlying facts. This shortcut saves time and evidence-gathering effort.
If your landlord was prosecuted but acquitted, the tribunal is not bound by that acquittal. It will assess the evidence afresh. That situation is rare and worth getting specific advice on before filing.
For landlords who have committed multiple offences or engaged in harassment alongside licensing failures, there may also be grounds under the landlord harassment legal remedies framework, which runs alongside rather than instead of the RRO route.
Common reasons RRO applications fail at tribunal
The application fails most often for four reasons, none of which are hard to avoid if you know about them in advance.
The application window has passed. The application must be filed within 2 years of the offence ending for offences on or after 1 May 2026, or 12 months for earlier offences. Many tenants discover RROs after moving out and miss the deadline. If you are still in the property and the offence is ongoing, the clock has not started yet.
The property did not require a licence. Not every shared property is a licensable HMO. A property occupied by two people in a two-person household may not meet the HMO threshold. Check the exact definition for your local authority before filing. Some councils have selective licensing schemes that extend this requirement to all rented properties in a given area. Others do not, and designations are time-limited and change, so check your own council's register rather than assuming yours is or is not covered.
The evidence is too thin. A vague statement that the landlord 'harassed' you is not enough. The tribunal needs specifics: dates, what was said, what was done, what followed. Harassment claims under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 require conduct that interferes with the peace or comfort of the occupier, or persistent withdrawal of services, done with the intent to make the occupier leave. That is a specific legal test. Meet it with specific evidence.
The wrong respondent is named. The order must be made against the person who committed the offence. If the property is managed through a company, check who legally held the licence obligation. Naming the wrong entity can sink an otherwise good claim.
These failure points are exactly what Remedy's negotiation dashboard is designed to catch early. It runs a success probability score based on cases with similar fact patterns, so you know where your weak points are before you file.
Most tenants who qualify for a rent repayment order never apply for one. Either they do not know the ground exists, or they assume they need a solicitor and a conviction before anything is worth attempting. Neither is true.
If your landlord operated an unlicensed HMO, ignored an improvement notice, or tried to push you out without a proper possession ground and then re-let, there is a credible claim worth investigating. The amounts are real. Think £9,000, £15,000, and more, depending on your rent and how long the offence ran.
Remedy checks your property against HMO licensing registers, assesses RRO eligibility, and helps you build your tribunal bundle from the start. The free instant assessment takes a few minutes and tells you whether the grounds are there. If they are, you can move forward on a no-win-no-fee basis: 10% of winnings, nothing if the claim fails. Start at Remedy's landlord and property assessment and find out what you are owed.
