Can You Recover a Rent Repayment Order From Your Letting Agent?

You let an HMO through a letting agent. The agent said it would deal with the licence. Then a tenant, or the council, applies for a rent repayment order because the house was never licensed, and the application names you, not the agent.

That is how the law is built. The order is made against you. Getting the money back from the agent is a separate claim, and it turns on your agency agreement, not on the housing legislation. This guide covers both halves: what the order is and why it lands on you, and what you need to check before you try to recover it.

Correct as at 24 October 2026, against legislation.gov.uk. England only: Wales and Scotland have different rules. This is general information, not legal advice. If an application has been made against you, speak to a solicitor.

What a rent repayment order is

A rent repayment order is made by the First-tier Tribunal. The Housing and Planning Act 2016 lets the tribunal make one where a listed offence "has been committed by— (a) a landlord under a tenancy of housing in England, or (b) any superior landlord in relation to such a tenancy" (s.40(1)). The words about a superior landlord were added by the Renters' Rights Act 2025 from 1 May 2026, so an order can now be made against a superior landlord as well as against the tenant's own landlord.

Controlling or managing an HMO that needs a licence but does not have one is one of the listed offences: it is row 5 of the table, the Housing Act 2004 section 72(1) offence. A tenant or the local housing authority may apply "for a rent repayment order against a landlord who has committed an offence" (s.41(1)). A tenant can apply only if the offence was committed in the 2 years ending with the day the application is made; that period was also changed by the Renters' Rights Act on 1 May 2026.

How much. For an unlicensed HMO, the order relates to rent paid for "a period, not exceeding 2 years, during which the landlord was committing the offence" (s.44(2)). The maximum period doubled to 2 years on 1 May 2026. The amount cannot be more than the rent paid for that period, less any universal credit paid towards the rent (s.44(3)). To take an illustration, not a figure from any case: on a house of five rooms let at £700 a month each, two years of rent is £84,000. That is the scale of what a landlord in this position is trying to recover.

For how an application runs from start to finish, see the rent repayment order guide.

Why the order is made against you, not the agent

The Act names the landlord at every step. The offence that matters is one "committed by a landlord in relation to housing in England let by that landlord" (s.40(3)), and the application is made "against a landlord" (s.41(1)). Your agent may well have committed the licensing offence too. The section 72 offence is committed by "any person having control of or managing the HMO" as well as by the landlord, and an agent who receives the rents can be the person managing. The agent can be prosecuted for that offence, or given a civil penalty by the council instead. But a rent repayment order is not one of the things that can follow the agent. The rent repayment provisions name the landlord and the superior landlord, and nobody else.

For every other duty, and where the agent can be liable alongside you, see your letting agent made the mistake: who pays?, which goes through them one by one.

Getting it back from your agent

No provision in the housing legislation makes your agent liable to you for an order made against you. If you can recover it, that will be through your agency agreement and the general law of contract and negligence. Whether you succeed depends on what you agreed and on what the agent actually did. So the first job is to read the agreement, closely, with four questions in mind.

1. Did the agreement make the licence the agent's job? Look for licensing in the list of services. "Full management" on its own may not settle it. Look for words about applying for, renewing or advising on a licence, and for anything that says the landlord stays responsible for licensing or for knowing the local rules. Then look beyond the agreement: an email in which the agent said it would apply, an invoice for a licensing fee, a renewal reminder it promised and never sent. Collect everything that shows the agent took the licence on.

2. Is there an indemnity? An indemnity clause is a promise by one side to make good a defined kind of loss suffered by the other. Check who gives it, and for what. In some agreements the indemnity runs the other way, from the landlord to the agent. If there is one in your favour, check whether it covers losses caused by the agent's failure to perform its services, and whether fines, penalties or orders against you are carved out.

3. Does the agreement limit the agent's liability? Some agreements cap what the agent will pay, for example at the fees you paid over a period, or exclude certain kinds of loss altogether. A cap of a year's fees against an order worth up to two years' rent makes a large difference. Note the wording exactly; whether a cap holds is itself a legal question, and a solicitor will want to see it.

4. What does it say about claims and complaints? Check for a complaints procedure, a deadline for raising a claim, and any requirement to give notice in a particular way. Follow it, and keep copies of everything you send.

Gather the evidence while you read. The agreement and every version of it, the emails about the licence, the invoices, any letters from the council, the tribunal application and, once you have it, the tribunal's decision. Put the dates in order. A claim like this is usually decided on who said what, and when.

The redress scheme. A letting agent must belong to "a redress scheme for dealing with complaints in connection with that work" (SI 2014/2359 art 3(1)), so you can take a complaint about the agent to its scheme. The approved schemes are listed on gov.uk. Each scheme's published rules set what it will consider and the most it can award. Read your agent's scheme's rules before you rely on a complaint to cover a sum of this size.

Take advice. A claim against your agent for a rent repayment order is a claim for a large sum, under a contract, against a business that will have its own advisers. A solicitor who reads your agreement can tell you whether it is worth bringing, and how long you have.

What the tribunal must take into account

The amount of an order is not automatic. In deciding it, the tribunal "must, in particular, take into account" the matters listed in s.44(4):

• the conduct of the landlord and of the tenant;
• any rent the tenant received for the same period for the housing let to them (added on 1 May 2026);
• the landlord's financial circumstances;
• whether the landlord has at any time been convicted of, or received a financial penalty for, an offence to which the rent repayment provisions apply (the financial penalty was added on 1 May 2026);
• whether a rent repayment order has been made against the landlord before (added on 1 May 2026).

The Act lists these matters; it does not say how much weight each one carries in a given case.

Stopping it happening: check the licence exists

The section 72 offence is committed by the person managing the HMO and by the landlord. So a licence your agent was meant to get is your exposure as much as theirs, whoever fills in the form. The fix is simple to describe: let the agent do the application if that is what you are paying for, and check for yourself that the licence exists.

• Ask the agent for a copy of the licence, the date it was granted and the date it ends. A licence lasts no more than 5 years (Housing Act 2004 s.68), so there is always a renewal to plan for.
• Confirm it with the council. Whether a property needs a licence is for your council, which may also run an additional or selective licensing scheme. gov.uk has a postcode lookup for your council.
• Keep the copy and the dates in your own records, not only the agent's. If the agent changes, closes or loses the file, the evidence stays with you.

For what needs a licence and what the conditions require, see the HMO licence guide. The free tracker puts the HMO licence on each house's checklist, next to the gas, electrical and EPC dates it can email you about.

Is the agent worth what it costs?

If your agent was paid to manage a house and the licence still went missing, it is fair to ask what the fee was buying. The Letting Agent Cost Calculator puts a number on what full management costs you over five, ten and twenty years. For an HMO, count it as one property and enter the total monthly rent from all its rooms.

Frequently Asked Questions

My agent was supposed to get the HMO licence. Can the tribunal make the rent repayment order against the agent?

The Housing and Planning Act 2016 lets the First-tier Tribunal make a rent repayment order where the offence was committed by a landlord or a superior landlord (s.40(1)), and a tenant or the council applies for it against a landlord (s.41(1)). It does not provide for an order against a letting agent. Correct as at 24 October 2026.

Can I make my agent pay me back?

Possibly, but not under the rent repayment order rules. No provision makes an agent liable to you for an order made against you. Whether you can recover it depends on your agency agreement and the general law of contract and negligence: what the agreement made the agent responsible for, what it says about indemnity, and whether it limits the agent's liability. Take advice from a solicitor before you rely on it.

Can a redress scheme order my agent to pay?

A letting agent must belong to a redress scheme for dealing with complaints about its lettings work (SI 2014/2359 art 3(1)), so you can take a complaint about the agent there. The scheme's published rules set what it will consider and the most it can award. Read them before you count on a complaint covering a rent repayment order.