The law changed on 1 May 2026. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 raised the maximum Rent Repayment Order from 12 months’ rent to 2 years’ rent, and extended the deadline for applying from 12 months to 2 years from the date of the offence.
These new limits apply to offences committed on or after 1 May 2026. If your landlord’s offence was committed before that date, the previous rules still apply to you: a cap of 12 months’ rent, and 12 months to apply. Not sure which applies? Tell us the dates and we will work it out for you.
Additional licensing is the scheme that catches the small shared house. Where mandatory licensing needs five occupiers, an additional licensing designation typically bites at three — and because it is local, temporary and easy to miss, it produces a disproportionate number of Rent Repayment Order claims.
What it is
Under section 56 of the Housing Act 2004, a council can designate all or part of its area so that HMOs which fall outside mandatory licensing must still be licensed. Most designations cover HMOs occupied by three or more people forming two or more households who share amenities.
A council must consult before making a designation and must be satisfied that a significant proportion of HMOs in the area are being poorly managed. Designations run for a maximum of five years, and then either lapse or are renewed — sometimes with different boundaries or a different threshold.
Why it catches so many landlords out
Four features make additional licensing unusually easy to fall foul of:
- It is local. A landlord with properties in two boroughs may need a licence in one and not the other, for identical houses.
- It is time-limited. A designation that expires and is renewed creates a fresh obligation. Landlords who licensed once often assume they are covered indefinitely.
- Boundaries change. A renewed designation may cover wards that the previous one did not.
- The threshold is low. Three people from two households is an ordinary three-bedroom house share — the kind of letting nobody thinks of as an “HMO”.
Dates are everything. Because designations start and stop, a property can be lawfully unlicensed for one part of your tenancy and unlawfully unlicensed for another. Establishing exactly when the designation was in force for your address is usually the single most important piece of research in an additional licensing claim.
A real example
One of the decisions we have written up on this site turned on precisely this. A five-bedroom house at 273 Fulham Palace Road was let by London State Ltd without a licence. Hammersmith and Fulham had an additional licensing scheme in force requiring properties with three or more people in two or more households to be licensed. The landlord claimed to have applied in January 2020; the council’s records showed the successful application only arrived in September 2021, after the tenancy. The tribunal rejected the section 72(4) defence and made an order of £7,020.
How to find out whether a designation covered you
- Search your council’s website for “additional licensing designation” alongside the borough name. Councils are required to publish designations.
- Check the dates the designation was in force, and whether it was renewed.
- Check the area — some designations are borough-wide, others cover named wards or streets.
- Check the threshold, which is usually but not always three people in two households.
- Then search the council’s public HMO register for your address and compare the licence dates against your tenancy.
If a designation covered your address for the period you lived there and no licence appears on the register, that is the foundation of a claim.
What it means for a claim
Letting an unlicensed HMO in a designated area is the same offence as under mandatory licensing — section 72(1) of the Housing Act 2004 — and gives the same right to a Rent Repayment Order: up to 2 years’ rent for offences on or after 1 May 2026, 12 months for earlier ones.
The defences are the same too: a duly made application under section 72(4), or a reasonable excuse under section 72(5). In additional licensing cases landlords very often argue that they did not know the designation existed. Tribunals have not treated that sympathetically — designations are consulted on and published, and a landlord is expected to know the rules that apply to their own property.
If you are a landlord
- Check the designation position for every property, in every borough, and diarise the expiry date.
- Re-check when a tenancy changes — a new occupier can push a property over the threshold.
- Apply before letting, and keep dated proof of the application, including the fee payment. That proof is what the section 72(4) defence stands or falls on.
Working out designations is fiddly. The dates, boundaries and thresholds all matter and councils present them inconsistently. Tell us the address and the dates you lived there and we will check the position for you — free, and with no obligation.
This article is general information about the law in England and is not legal advice about your own circumstances. Designations vary between local authorities and change over time. The rules differ in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Think this applies to you? Checking whether your landlord needed a licence is free and takes about two minutes. Start your free licensing check.