Can property guardians get their money back? Rent repayment orders explained

Picture this

Say you've lived in a shared guardian building for a year. You share the kitchen and bathrooms with lots of other guardians.

Then you find out the building never had the HMO licence it needed. Can you get any of your money back? This guide walks you through it.

This is a made-up example, not a real case.

In short

• A rent repayment order (RRO) is a tribunal order telling a landlord to pay back rent. For guardians, "rent" means your licence fee.
• The most common reason guardians claim is a shared building that needed an HMO licence and didn't have one.
• Courts have confirmed that guardians can claim, even though they have a licence and not a tenancy.
• In published guardian cases, tribunals have ordered about £3,250 per guardian on average.

What is a rent repayment order?

It is an order from the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), a tribunal that deals with housing disputes. It tells a landlord who broke certain housing laws to pay back rent you paid (Housing and Planning Act 2016, s.40).

Guardians usually sign a licence, not a tenancy. That doesn't stop you. For RROs, the law says "tenancy" includes a licence (s.56).

A tribunal first ordered a firm to repay a guardian on a licence in 2019. The Upper Tribunal (2022) and the Court of Appeal (2023) later upheld orders for guardians.

When can a guardian claim?

Only when the landlord has committed one of the offences listed in the law (s.40). The ones most likely to matter to guardians are:

• Running an unlicensed HMO

  A shared house or building that needed a licence. This is behind most guardian claims. See is a guardian building an HMO?

• Running an unlicensed house

  In an area where the council runs its own licensing scheme for rented homes.

• Illegal eviction or harassment

  Such as changing the locks without a court order, or using violence to get in.

• Ignoring a council notice

  To fix a hazard (an improvement notice) or to stop using a building (a prohibition order).

• Breaking a banning order

  This stops someone letting homes.

You don't need the firm to have been taken to court first. The tribunal decides for itself.

But it must be sure "beyond reasonable doubt" that the offence happened (form RRO1 guidance).

Who do you claim against?

Usually the guardian company. The company that collects your payments is normally the "person having control" of the building.

A linked company that runs it can be the "person managing". Either can commit the offence (Upper Tribunal, 2022; Court of Appeal, 2023).

Since 1 May 2026, you can also claim against a "superior landlord", such as the building's owner, if it committed the offence too (s.40(2); government roadmap).

The time limit

The offence must have happened within the 2 years before the day you apply (s.41(2)). That 2-year rule started on 1 May 2026. Before then it was 12 months.

For an offence before 1 May 2026, or the part of an offence before that date, the old 12-month rule still applies. So check the dates carefully (transitional rules).

Tribunals apply the limit to the day and can't extend it. These claims failed under the old 12-month rule:

• A claim made 6 days late was struck out (2022).
• 29 guardians lost a claim the tribunal said it would otherwise have granted, because it was 1 day late (2025).

The clock may start earlier than you think. For an unlicensed HMO, the offence stops once the firm applies for a licence, not when you move out (tribunal, 2025).

So apply as soon as you can, and don't leave it to the last weeks.

How much have guardians got back?

We read 36 published court and tribunal decisions involving guardians, up to October 2026. In 11 of them, the tribunal ordered money back.

Together those orders came to about £195,000, for at least 60 guardians. That is roughly £3,250 per guardian on average.

• Single-guardian awards ranged from £2,000 to about £6,000.
• The biggest group order was about £65,000, shared by 27 guardians at 65% of what they paid, less bills (tribunal, 2024).
• Another order gave three guardians £3,427 each (2024).

You rarely get everything back. The tribunal looks at how both sides behaved, the landlord's money situation and its record (s.44).

Before 1 May 2026, the most you could get was 12 months' payments. For offences since then, it is up to 2 years' (s.44; transitional rules).

How to apply

1. 1

   Get form RRO1

   Download it from GOV.UK. Fill it in as a Word document.
2. 2

   Email it

   Send it to the tribunal's regional office for your area. The addresses are at the end of the form.
3. 3

   Pay the fee

   £114 to apply, and £227 more if there is a hearing. On a low income you may pay less or nothing (Help with Fees).
4. 4

   Send a copy

   Send a copy of your application to the company you are claiming against.

Evidence to keep

Free help

Shelter, Citizens Advice and local housing advice centres give free advice.

Your council's private housing team can check whether a building needed a licence. Councils can also apply for RROs themselves (s.41(1)).

A clause telling you to keep quiet can't stop you reporting safety problems to the council (GOV.UK fact sheet).

Questions people ask