Rent Repayment Orders for Tenants
You can apply for up to 100% of your rent to be repaid if:
1) You were living in a house where your landlord committed one of the following offences:
- Let the house as an unlicensed property
- Failed to comply with an Improvement Notice
- Failed to comply with a Prohibition Order
- Used violence to enter the property
- Illegal eviction or harassment of tenants
- Breached a Banning Order (from April 2018)
2) You need to be able to demonstrate to the First-tier Tribunal that the offence was committed
- Either your landlord has been prosecuted, or
- Received a financial penalty,
- Or otherwise it can be demonstrated beyond or reasonable doubt that the landlord committed the offence
3) You apply to the First-tier Tribunal (FtT) for a Rent Repayment Order (RRO)
- You can apply for up to 100% of your rent to be repaid to you (minus any Universal Credit), covering the period when you were living in the house and the offence was being committed by your landlord, up to a maximum of 12 months.
- You must apply to the Tribunal within 12 months of the date when the offence was committed.
- You must have been living in the property when the offence occurred, or was ongoing, to be eligible to apply.
When determining how much rent to order your landlord to repay, the First-tier Tribunal will generally take into account:
- The conduct of the landlord and the tenant,
- The financial circumstances of the landlord; and
- Whether the landlord has been convicted of the offence.
However, there are a number of circumstances where the Tribunal MUST award you the maximum amount of rent possible.
We can advise you on the process and provide supporting evidence. If you need further assistance completing the application forms and/or help presenting your case to the First-tier Tribunal we advise you to contact a solicitor or other organisations with specialist knowledge in the area, for example Justice for Tenants (email OxfordRRO@justicefortenants.org) or Flat Justice.
Technical guidance on Rent Repayment Orders is available from the Department for Communities and Local Government.
