What is a Rent Repayment Order?

A Rent Repayment Order (RRO) is an order of the First-tier Tribunal requiring your landlord to pay back rent you have already paid, because they committed a housing offence. It is not compensation and it is not a rent reduction — it is your own money coming back to you.

The idea in one paragraph

Parliament decided that some housing offences — letting an unlicensed HMO, illegally evicting someone, harassing a tenant — should cost a landlord the rent they collected while breaking the law. Rather than leaving enforcement entirely to councils, the Housing and Planning Act 2016 lets the tenant apply directly. You bring the case, and the money is paid to you.

The offences that qualify

Section 40 of the 2016 Act lists them. The main ones are below; in practice most tenant claims rest on the first two:

• Controlling or managing an unlicensed HMO — s.72(1), Housing Act 2004
• Controlling or managing an unlicensed house under selective licensing — s.95(1), Housing Act 2004
• Illegal eviction or harassment — s.1, Protection from Eviction Act 1977
• Violence to secure entry — s.6(1), Criminal Law Act 1977
• Failing to comply with an improvement notice or prohibition order
• Breaching a banning order

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 added three further offences from 1 May 2026, concerning the misuse of possession grounds and breaches of the restrictions on re-letting after eviction. We act on the licensing offences, which are the basis of the overwhelming majority of tenant claims.

Note what is not on the list. Disrepair on its own, a rent increase you think is unfair, a deposit that was not protected, a bad reference — none of these found an RRO, however annoying they are. There are other remedies for those.

How much you can get

Since 1 May 2026 the maximum is 2 years’ rent, raised from 12 months by the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. The old 12-month cap still applies to offences committed before that date.

The maximum is not automatic. The Upper Tribunal set out the approach in Acheampong v Roman [2022] UKUT 239 (LC), and tribunals now work through four steps:

1. Start with the whole rent for the relevant period.
2. Deduct any part of it that was really the landlord paying for utilities that benefited only you — gas, electricity, water, broadband included in the rent.
3. Weigh how serious the offence was, both against other offence types and against other examples of the same offence.
4. Adjust for the section 44(4) factors: the conduct of both parties, any rent the tenant received for the period, the landlord’s financial circumstances, whether they have been convicted of or fined for a listed offence, and whether a rent repayment order has been made against them before.

That is why two tenants paying identical rent can receive very different awards. It also means the things you might assume are irrelevant — whether you paid on time, how you treated the property — genuinely do matter.

What you cannot claim

Rent paid on your behalf through housing benefit or universal credit is not yours to reclaim — the local authority can recover that element separately. If your rent was part-funded, you claim the part you paid yourself.

The standard of proof is criminal

This surprises people. Under section 43 the tribunal must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the offence was committed — the criminal standard, even though the tribunal is a civil one and no one is being prosecuted. Your landlord does not have to disprove anything; they only have to raise a reasonable doubt.

In practice this is why documentary evidence wins RRO cases and recollection loses them. The licensing register, your tenancy agreement and your bank statements are worth more than any amount of argument.

Who can apply

• Private tenants, current or former. You do not need to still live there.
• You must have paid rent during the period the offence was being committed.
• You must apply within 2 years of the offence (12 months if it was committed before 1 May 2026).

Tenants of housing associations, council tenants and tenants of arms-length management organisations cannot apply. Where several of you shared the property, each tenant claims their own rent — you are not splitting one award between you.

What the process looks like

1. Establish the licensing position for the exact period you lived there.
2. Gather your tenancy agreement and proof of every rent payment.
3. Apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) on form RRO1.
4. Exchange evidence with your landlord to the tribunal’s directions.
5. Attend the hearing — often remote, and far less formal than a court.
6. Receive a written decision, usually within a few weeks. Payment is normally ordered within 28 days.

There is a fee to apply and a further fee if the case goes to a hearing — check the current figures on GOV.UK, as the Property Chamber’s fees were restructured during 2026. A successful applicant can ask for those to be reimbursed by the landlord, which tribunals routinely order, and Help with Fees is available on a low income.

Is it worth doing?

The awards are not token. The two decisions we have written up on this site — £7,020 for two tenants in Hammersmith and Fulham and £11,268 for a single tenant in Camden — were both decided under the old 12-month cap. The same facts today would be worth considerably more.

The hardest part is usually establishing the licensing position, because designations vary by borough and change over time. That is the part we do for you, free, before you commit to anything.

This article is general information about the law in England and is not legal advice about your own circumstances. Tribunal fees and forms change — check the current figures on GOV.UK before applying. The rules differ in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.