Rent repayment orders

If you are a tenant and your landlord has committed one of a list or particular offences, you may be able to apply for a rent repayment order which means your landlord will have to repay rent that you have actually paid (for up to 12 months). The types of offences that count are listed in the law and include things like the landlord not complying with and improvement notice, carrying out an illegal eviction or not getting a licence for a HMO when one is needed.

You can find out more information about the conditions for getting a rent repayment order and how to go about this on the Shelter website.

Your landlord does not have to have been prosecuted for you to apply for a rent repayment order, but if they have not been prosecuted you will need to prove to a tribunal, beyond reasonable doubt, that they have committed an offence.

Bradford Council cannot apply for a Rent Repayment Order on your behalf, but we can provide you with any documents that may help you with this – for instance copies of improvement notices or where we have issued a Civil Penalty notice because of a breach. You can contact us using the details on the right of this page.

Bradford Council can also apply for a Rent Repayment Order, covering housing benefit or the housing costs element of Universal Credit, which has been paid out. Please refer to our Enforcement Policy (PDF, 504 Kb) which explains the types of enforcement action we can take and how we decide which course to follow, for more information about this.