Make a claim

RRO step-by-step

Every step of a Rent Repayment Order application, from the first checks to the money arriving. You can do all of this yourself — most applicants do, without a solicitor.

Part one — before you apply

1. Do this first

   Prove you paid rent

   An online banking search for your rent payments, saved as a PDF, is by far the best evidence. Don’t send a pile of bank statements and expect the tribunal to sort through them.

   On Windows, print the search results and choose “Microsoft Print to PDF”; if there is no print option press Ctrl + P. On a Mac, use the PDF button at the lower left of the print dialogue and choose Save as PDF.

   Some banks — HSBC and First Direct among them — won’t let you search transactions older than three months. Screenshot the individual transactions and compile them in date order in a document. Use a computer, not a phone: mobile banking screenshots are very hard to work with. A spreadsheet helps as a summary, but on its own it isn’t evidence — anyone could have typed it.

   Paid in cash? Show the cash withdrawals, or where the money came from, around the dates you paid, and cover the dates and amounts in a sworn witness statement.

2. Do this first

   Establish that the property needed a licence

   Mandatory HMO licensing runs across England and generally catches properties with five or more occupants in two or more households sharing an amenity — you only need to have shared one. The old “three or more storeys” requirement was abolished on 1 October 2018. It does not catch a purpose-built flat in a block of three or more self-contained flats.

   Additional licensing (smaller HMOs) and selective licensing (any private let in the area) apply only where the council has declared a scheme. Check the designation itself and its dates. In a selective area you don’t need to prove HMO status at all.

   For an HMO claim you’ll also need proof the property was an HMO — tenancy agreements for enough tenants to meet the threshold across your rental period.

   An HMO can be caught by selective licensing

   A property escapes selective licensing only if it’s an HMO that Part 2 requires to be licensed. So in a borough with a selective scheme but no additional HMO scheme — Liverpool, for instance — a house share can be an HMO in fact and still need a selective licence.

3. Do this first

   Get the council’s written answer — not a register screenshot

   Don’t rely on the online licence register. Registers are frequently out of date, incomplete, and silent about applications made but not yet decided.

   Write to the council and ask three things:

   • was the property licensed, and for what period?
   • was a licence application made, and on what date?
   • what does this council treat as a duly made application?

   That third question matters more than it looks. Landlords often send in an application without the fee or the obligatory supporting documents, and that may not count.

   Ask one more thing while you’re there

   Has any civil penalty been issued against this landlord, for what offence, and has the appeal period expired? Since 1 May 2026 a final financial penalty for the same offence forces the tribunal to award you the maximum, so this is the single most valuable enquiry you can make. The ceiling is now £40,000, with national starting points of £17,000 for an unlicensed HMO and £12,000 for a selective licence property.

   If the council refuses on data protection grounds, come back to us — there’s an exemption covering legal proceedings and we have a template letter.

4. Do this first

   Fix the exact first and last day of the offence

   A licensing offence ends when a duly made application reaches the council — not when the licence is granted, and not when a register entry appears. You cannot include the day the application was made. The offence also ends if the property stops being licensable, and your own claim ends when you stop paying rent for it.

   Whole days count, and they count in the landlord’s favour. Where an element of a continuing offence falls away part-way through a day — a housemate moves out and the house drops below five occupants — that entire day counts as a day the offence was not being committed (Stokki v Choudhury [2026] UKUT 11 (LC), §§17–20). So the offence can end a full day earlier than you assume.

5. Deadline check

   Check you’re in time

   Two years to apply for an offence committed on or after 1 May 2026; twelve months for an offence before that date. The clock runs from the offence, and for a continuing offence it doesn’t start until the offence stops.

   You must apply the day before the anniversary of the last whole day of the offence. So if a licence was duly applied for on 13 February 2025, the application had to be in on or before 11 February 2026.

   If the offence ran across 1 May 2026, whether the two-year window carries the earlier months isn’t yet settled. Treat 29 April 2027 as the safe deadline for the pre-May part and talk to us if your dates are near it.

   An application counts when it’s sent, out of hours included (Gorgievski v Griffiths [2025] UKUT 161 (LC), followed in Jamroz v Ali [2025] UKUT 265 (LC)). Don’t rely on it — a day late is a day too late.

6. Do this before you commit

   Check what universal credit or housing benefit takes out

   The amount the tribunal can order for a period is the rent paid by or on behalf of you, less any relevant award of universal credit paid to anyone in respect of rent under the tenancy for that period. Rent met by housing benefit is recoverable only by the local authority, and only if it applies itself.

   If your rent was met in full by the housing element throughout, there may be nothing in it for you however strong the case. If it was met in part, claim the part you paid yourself.

   This is the first thing we check on any enquiry. Do it before you spend time on anything else.

7. Decide

   Work out who the landlord really is

   Agents often put themselves on the tenancy agreement and keep the real landlord out of sight. Get the registered title from the Land Registry — about £3 — and check any company at Companies House.

   For offences before 1 May 2026 the order can only be made against your immediate landlord (Rakusen v Jepsen [2023] UKSC 9), and directors of a company landlord cannot be respondents because they aren’t landlords (Kaszowska v White [2022] UKUT 11 (LC)). For offences on or after that date you can also name any superior landlord and any director or officer of a company landlord where the offence was committed with their consent or connivance, or is down to their neglect.

   Where it’s ambiguous, name them all in one application and let the tribunal sort it out. Name only the owner and they will say they weren’t your landlord; name only the agent and they will say they were never a landlord at all. You can drop a respondent later; adding one after the deadline may be impossible.

Part two — the application

8. Day one

   Send the RRO1 form with your evidence

   By email or by post; email is simpler and the tribunal now works mainly that way. Enclose your proof of rent payments; your tenancy or licence agreement; the council’s written confirmation of the licensing position and dates; an occupancy table for an HMO; and the registered title showing ownership.

   Include the landlord’s email address wherever you can, and copy the application email to them. No email address? Post a paper copy and get a free proof of posting certificate at the Post Office counter.

   Several tenants of the same property can go in on one application with one fee where you shared a tenancy agreement. On separate agreements you each pay a fee. Choose one person as the representative for correspondence.

9. Within 14 days

   Pay the £114 application fee

   The tribunal acknowledges the application and asks for the fee, giving bank details and a reference. A £227 hearing fee follows later.

   If you’re on a low income or certain benefits you may pay nothing. Apply for help with fees at the same time as the application, not afterwards — and each fee needs its own application.

10. Sometimes

    Case management hearing, if there’s one

    Not automatic. The tribunal calls one where there’s an irregularity in the application or a dispute about who the landlord is. It lasts around 30 minutes. A judge checks there’s a case to answer, says what evidence is needed and in what format, and sets out how everyone is to communicate. It can add several weeks.

11. Then

    Directions are issued

    These are the timetable, and missing one can cost you the case. They will usually cover what evidence is required and how many copies; how communication must work; the date for the landlord’s response, usually about a month on; the date for your reply, about a month after that; the hearing date, roughly a month later again; the hearing fee, due within about two weeks; and a mediation form.

    Diarise every date the day you get it. You don’t have to mediate and you’re not disadvantaged if you decline — just tick the box. We generally recommend negotiating directly with the respondent instead.

Part three — building the case

12. About a month after directions

    Your bundle

    Three components: a statement of case setting out the offence, the period, the respondents and the amount claimed; a sworn witness statement from each applicant, with numbered paragraphs, a statement of truth and a signature; and everything you might need to rely on, paginated and indexed. Argue the amount here, not on the application form.

    Where the facts are disputed there must be a hearing, even if both sides would accept a decision on the papers, because the tribunal has to be satisfied a criminal offence was committed (Raza v Bradford Metropolitan District Council [2021] UKUT 39 (LC)). Paper determinations do happen where the offence is admitted and only the amount is in issue. Say yes if you’re asked whether you would accept one: it costs nothing, and a genuine factual dispute forces a hearing anyway.

13. A month later

    Their bundle, and your reply

    The respondent files their case and evidence on the date set. You then get your own date to reply, and you can add further evidence at this stage, including sworn statements.

    This is where cases are won. Narrow the issues actually in dispute, answer each ground and each limb of their witness statement, and deal head-on with their evidence about their own financial circumstances. Tribunals have reduced awards on thin material — press for tax returns and evidence of expenditure rather than an account given from the witness box.

    Be ready for a claim that the landlord’s costs should be set against the rent. If the tribunal starts down that road, ask politely under what part of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 such deductions are said to be allowable.

14. About two weeks later

    The hearing

    Normally in person at the tribunal. Expect three to five hours — they usually start at 10, break for lunch and reconvene. Two or three normally sit: a chair who leads, with one or two lay members who are usually property professionals such as surveyors. The room is more like a classroom than a courtroom — no wigs, no gowns, no gavel, and nobody shouts “objection”. Dress smart casual, address the panel as “Sir” or “Ma’am”, and never interrupt.

    You’ll be asked questions about your witness statement. If you’re also claiming harassment and have other witnesses who made statements, they will need to attend. Allow at least 15 minutes for security at the entrance, and update your rent figures before you go in if the offence is still running.

    Video hearings are the exception — typically where a party or witness is abroad. If you’re overseas, ask as early as you can and say which country you’ll be in: some countries allow evidence to be given to a UK tribunal by video, others require permission case by case. See the country-by-country list and the President of the Property Chamber’s guidance on evidence from abroad.

15. Days to six weeks

    Decision, payment and enforcement

    The decision normally arrives within six weeks of the hearing, sometimes in a few days. It states the award and orders the respondent to pay. Either side has 28 days to seek permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal.

    If the money doesn’t arrive, the order can be converted into a county court judgment and enforced, including by a charging order against the property. Where an order is made against more than one landlord they are jointly and severally liable, so you can enforce the whole award against whichever of them has assets.

    If an award goes unpaid, we give our clients free advice on how they can enforce it.

If your claim isn’t about licensing

Steps 8 to 15 are the same for every offence. What changes is what you have to prove and which period you can claim.

Illegal eviction, harassment, or violence to secure entry

These are one-off offences, not continuing ones, so there’s no application date to hunt down — but there’s also no growing claim. The period is the rent paid in the two years ending with the date of the offence (twelve months, before 1 May 2026), and you cannot pick an earlier window.

They are much harder to prove than licensing, because no council record does the work for you and the standard is the criminal one. Contemporaneous evidence is everything: messages, photographs, a police reference number, a note made on the day, a witness who will attend.

Social housing isn’t excluded from these offences, even though it’s excluded from licensing. And unlike licensing, a director of a company landlord can be pursued personally for illegal eviction and harassment, whatever the date of the offence.

Improvement notice or prohibition order not complied with

The offence doesn’t begin until the deadline in the notice has expired, so rent paid while you were putting up with the disrepair beforehand isn’t recoverable. That’s the single best reason to get the council in early rather than late. You’ll need the notice or order itself, proof of the deadline, and evidence the work wasn’t done by then.

Misuse of a possession ground, or re-letting after eviction

Offences from 1 May 2026 only. Three new offences apply where the landlord knowingly or recklessly used a possession ground that didn’t apply, or broke the restrictions on re-letting or re-marketing after using the moving-in or selling ground.

Two things make them unusual. For the first two you do not have to have been the tenant when the offence was committed. And for the re-letting and marketing offence the period is measured back from the date of the offence or from the date your tenancy ended, if that was earlier. That cut-off is easy to miss.

Evidence is usually the possession notice, then the listing, advert or new tenancy that contradicts it. Screenshot the listing with its date the moment you see it.

Tips and tricks

• Get the application in as soon as you sensibly can. The deadline runs from the end of the offence and it’s unforgiving.
• Judges hate messy paperwork — it wastes hearing time. Paginate and index everything, and bind it in a lever-arch file with dividers.
• Synchronise your printed and electronic page numbers. Judges often navigate a PDF rather than paper, and the two sets of numbers must match.
• Write a skeleton argument — one side of A4, no more — summarising the essentials, and put it on top of the bundle. Take spare copies to the hearing.
• Go and watch a hearing before yours. The public are allowed to attend and it’s the best preparation there is.
• Comply with every direction. Copy the other side into anything you send the tribunal, and never miss an evidence deadline — applications have been struck out for this.
• Don’t edit message chains to drop the less helpful messages. The respondent will produce the full chain and you’ll look less than candid.
• Print in colour so photographs and screenshots are legible, and number the pages in a bright colour.