What Rent Repayment Order Data Really Shows

At Marks Out Of Tenancy we scanned thousands of Rent Repayment Order decision PDFs from First-tier Tribunals across the country, covering 2021 to the middle of 2024, and pulled the numbers out.

A Rent Repayment Order lets a tenant reclaim up to twelve months' rent where a landlord has committed certain offences, most often letting a property that needed a licence and did not have one. It is free to apply, you can do it after you have moved out, and most renters have never heard of it.

Here is what four years of decisions actually show.

Case numbers are not rising. They fell, then partly recovered

This is the finding that surprised us, and it runs against the way the trend is usually described.

2021 was the peak year, with around 248 cases. Numbers then fell sharply to 171 in 2022. They recovered by 19% to 203 in 2023, which is a real improvement, but still short of where they were in 2021. The first half of 2024 recorded 87, tracking closer to 2022 than to 2023.

So the honest version is not "more tenants are coming forward every year". It is that the route is being used less than it was four years ago, with one partial recovery in between.

That raises a question worth asking out loud: is this because fewer landlords are offending, or because fewer tenants know the route exists and can face using it?

The amount claimed follows the same shape

Total rent claimed by tenants peaked in 2021 at over £2.4 million, dropped to £1.56 million in 2022, rose again to £2.23 million in 2023, and stood at around £1 million for the first half of 2024.

That tracks the case numbers rather than telling a separate story: fewer cases, less claimed.

What it does underline is how much money sits unclaimed. Every one of those figures represents only the tenants who knew the route existed and went through with it.

The success rate is falling, and that is the real story

This is the number that matters most, and it has moved a long way.

In 2021, tenants recovered 72% of what they claimed. By 2023 that had fallen to 46%. Early 2024 data puts it lower still, at 41%.

Renters are now getting back well under half of what they ask for. Tribunals have discretion over how much of the rent to order repaid, and they weigh the landlord's conduct, their financial circumstances and the tenant's own conduct. A falling recovery rate suggests landlords are defending these cases more effectively than they were.

Meanwhile the fines issued to landlords went the other way: £14,608 in total in 2021, rising to £22,750 in 2023, with £12,800 recorded in the first half of 2024.

Put those two together and you get an uncomfortable picture. Landlords are being penalised more, and tenants are recovering less.

The practical lesson for anyone considering a claim: preparation decides the outcome. Dated evidence, the licensing position, the tenancy agreement, the payment record and, where you can get it, advice.

Representation is the clearest gap in the data

Landlords are far more likely than tenants to have a lawyer or professional advocate in an RRO case. Landlord representation has been falling since 2021, and the gap is still wide.

That matters, because representation correlates with outcome, and it is a plausible part of why the recovery rate has dropped.

If you are a tenant considering a Rent Repayment Order, Justice for Tenants is a non-profit that supports renters through exactly these cases, and appears as representative in several of the decisions we have written up.

Eviction runs through the whole dataset

Evictions come up constantly in these cases, and the frequency has barely shifted across four years. Rent repayment disputes and pressure to leave a home travel together.

That context has changed since this data was gathered. Section 21 no-fault eviction was abolished on 1 May 2026, so a landlord can no longer answer a claim with a two-month notice requiring no reason. What the Renters' Rights Act changed.

What this means if you are renting

• Check the licensing register first. Most successful cases turn on a licence the landlord never obtained. Your council publishes the register and it is free to search. How to check a landlord and property.
• Know whether your home is an HMO. Five or more people from two or more households triggers mandatory licensing, and many councils go further. Your rights in a shared house.
• You can apply after you have left. Former tenants bring most of these claims. Claiming money back from your landlord.
• Prepare properly. The falling recovery rate is the argument for evidence and advice, not for giving up.

The cases behind the numbers

We write up individual decisions as they come through, so you can see what a successful claim actually looks like:

• £41,000 to six tenants at Wroughton Road, Battersea, one of the largest orders on record
• £38,459 to three tenants at Gordon Mansions, London WC1
• £21,770 at Poplars Road, where the landlord's argument that an agent managed the property was rejected
• £7,884 against a landlord already subject to an earlier order

A note on the data

These figures come from our own reading of published First-tier Tribunal decisions between 2021 and mid-2024. Tribunal decisions are published unevenly and our scan will not have caught every case, so treat the totals as the shape of the trend rather than a complete national count. The 2024 figures cover half a year and are not comparable to the full years beside them.

If you have been through an RRO case, we would like to hear how it went.

And whether or not a case is on the cards, review your landlord and the property. A tribunal decision helps the tenants who brought it. A review reaches everyone who looks at that address next.