A tribunal decides that 50% is the right figure, then orders half of it.
The First-tier Tribunal decided LON/00BE/HMF/2025/0889 — Flat 1, Woodside Villa, 11 Sydenham Hill, London SE26 6SH — on 12 August 2026. It is not yet on GOV.UK. Three tenants shared a converted Victorian flat in Southwark; the borough runs an additional licensing scheme covering three or more people in two or more households; the flat was never licensed and no application was ever made. All of that was common ground or found beyond reasonable doubt (§§6, 31–34).
So the offence under s.72(1) of the Housing Act 2004 was made out. The agreed rent for the twelve-month period was £30,600. The question was the amount.
The arithmetic
At §65 the tribunal wrote that, taking all the seriousness factors into account, “the appropriate level of rent repayment order is 50%”. That is £15,300.
The order made at §67 was £7,650.
Nowhere in the decision does it say that a reduction was being made, or from what to what, or why the reduction was of that size rather than any other. The figure of £7,650 appears for the first time in the operative order. The reader has to do the division to discover that the award was halved.
The reason given
The one thing §65 does say, after the 50% finding, is that the tribunal considered the landlord’s financial position, accepted her evidence, and that “there must be doubt about whether a RRO will be met or just added to the list of creditors”.
That is a statement about whether the money would ever be collected. It is not a statement about the landlord’s financial circumstances, which is what s.44(4)(b) of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 directs a tribunal to take into account. The difference is not pedantry. Recoverability and financial circumstances point in the same direction most of the time, but they are different questions, and only one of them is in the statute. If the prospect of an order going unpaid is itself a reason to make a smaller order, the size of an award turns on the landlord’s standing as a creditor, and the least solvent offenders end up with the lightest orders.
What makes it awkward is that the tribunal had already directed itself correctly. At §61 it set out the passage from Kowalek v Hassanein Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 1041, where Newey LJ said at [23] that “Parliament’s principal concern was thus not to ensure that a tenant could recoup any particular amount of rent by way of recompense, but to incentivise landlords”, and that the Act conveys the message that “a landlord who commits one of the offences listed in section 40(3) is liable to forfeit every penny he receives for a 12-month period”. Deterrence identified as the purpose at §61; the award halved at §65 on a ground that has nothing to do with deterrence.
And the findings underneath it
The evidence supporting the reduction was thin, and the decision says so. At §44 the tribunal recorded that “detail was lacking”. At §45 it accepted the evidence without qualification. It then concluded that a sale at £670,000 would leave no surplus after costs and capital gains tax — with no CGT figure in evidence, and having found at §64 that the flat was the landlord’s own former residence, which is the very fact that engages private residence relief. It treated a mortgage of about £600,000 and outgoings above £3,000 a month as falling on her alone, having found at §8 that the flat is jointly owned. And the other investment property recorded at §64 is never reconciled with the finding that she was on the edge of bankruptcy.
The offence that was never determined
One more thing, and it is not a small one. At §13 the tribunal recorded that the claim was brought in respect of three offences, the first being eviction or harassment contrary to s.1(2), (3) or (3A) of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. At §66 it determined one: the licensing offence. The 1977 Act offence is not determined anywhere. It is not found proved; it is not found unproved; no reasons are given either way.
The only mention of harassment is at §54, where the tribunal distinguished Simpson House 3 Ltd v Osserman [2022] UKUT 164 (LC) on the basis that the harassment here was of a lower order. That is a remark about comparative seriousness. It is not a determination to the criminal standard of anything.
That gap matters to the money. At §58 the tribunal adopted the Deputy President’s observation in Irvine v Metcalfe [2023] UKUT 283 (LC) that a licensing failure, always serious, is generally of lesser significance than the other offences in s.40(3). A Protection from Eviction Act offence therefore sits higher on the scale. Had it been determined, the Acheampong starting point would have had to be higher than 50%, not lower.
The practical point
Two habits are worth building from this decision.
First, if you plead more than one offence, ask the tribunal at the hearing to determine each of them, and say why the second one changes the starting point. An offence that is pleaded and then passed over silently is worth nothing, and the omission is easy to miss until the order lands.
Second, when a tribunal announces a percentage and then orders a different sum, do the arithmetic straight away. A decision that gives a figure at one paragraph and a smaller figure at another, with no bridge between them, has not explained itself — and the parties are entitled to know how a halving was arrived at.
Pro bono advice given by Flat Justice.
