When two of the three joint tenants moved out of a house in Kingsbury in 2023, the one who stayed did what many sharers do. He found new flatmates, turned a reception room into a bedroom and carried on. The landlord, the tribunal heard, knew nothing about it until March 2025. When the remaining tenant later claimed back his rent, his case did not get past his own evidence. The reason matters to anyone who shares a home on a joint tenancy: if the tenancy is joint, everyone named on it may need to be part of the claim.
What happened
The property was a three-bedroom house in Kingsbury, in the London Borough of Brent. The most recent tenancy, dated 30 November 2021, was granted to three people jointly at £1,700 per month.
The applicant’s evidence was that in August 2023 the other two joint tenants moved out and he brought in three other occupiers, turning a reception room into a bedroom. He said they paid him a total of £1,325 per month and he paid the balance of £375. It was common ground that the landlord was not told of the change, which only came to light in March 2025, and that the house had become an HMO under Brent’s additional licensing scheme (§8).
The application was brought by one tenant alone, against two respondents. The claim against one of them, who was not named on the tenancy agreement, was dismissed on a concession at the start of the hearing (§3). At the close of the applicant’s evidence, the landlord’s counsel submitted that there was no case to answer. The tribunal agreed, so it never heard the landlord’s evidence and took the applicant’s evidence at its highest (§4).
How the tribunal decided
No case to answer. In civil courts, a party making this submission must usually agree to call no evidence if it fails. The tribunal held that “the current proceedings are quasi-criminal and there is no requirement to put the respondent to his election” (§14).
Joint tenants. The tribunal rejected the argument that the joint tenancy had been surrendered when the other two tenants left, because surrender needs agreement and the landlord did not know (§15). All three named tenants therefore remained responsible for the rent. Adopting its reasoning in an earlier Islington case, 122 Widdenham Road (LON/00AU/HMF/2025/0753), which it set out in full at the end of the decision, the tribunal said: “They were jointly liable for the rent and had a joint claim to a rent repayment order” (§16). The failure to join the other two was fatal to the application (§16).
The tribunal noted that an appeal against the earlier decision was due to be heard on 29 October 2026 (§17). In that earlier case it had granted permission to appeal because the joint-tenant point is of general public importance, while observing that a tenant need only add the other joint tenants as applicants or respondents: “There is no insuperable burden on tenants by this” (§8 of the annexed reasons on permission to appeal).
No offence in any event. The tribunal said it would have dismissed the claim anyway (§17). While the additional scheme was in force, the house was let to the joint tenants, so any duty to license it as an HMO fell on them rather than the landlord (§18). Because the house was an HMO, the landlord also committed no selective licensing offence (§18). From early 2025 there was no additional licensing requirement, so no HMO offence was possible (§19, §21). The landlord would also have had a reasonable excuse, as he did not know the occupiers had changed (§20).
Finally, any award might well have been negligible: the claim would have been limited to the £375 per month the applicant said he paid, and “on any view the seriousness of the breach is at the lower end of the scale” (§22). The tribunal made no order on fees and set a timetable for any costs application by the landlord.
The wider picture
The lead case is 122 Widdenham Road, Islington (LON/00AU/HMF/2025/0753), where Justice for Tenants represented the tenants. It produced three decisions. In a partial decision of 11 February 2026, Judge Adrian Jack and John Naylor FRICS FTPI assessed the order at 40% of the rent the applicants had paid, but left open whether the claim could go ahead without all the joint tenants. In a further decision of 18 February 2026 they held: “In the absence of all the joint tenants, the Tribunal has in our judgment no jurisdiction to make an RRO.” (§16). The tribunal then gave the tenants permission to appeal, because the point had not been decided by the Upper Tribunal. All three are reproduced in full at the end of the Brent decision; Judge Jack also sat on the Brent case. The tenants’ appeal (Brown and Others v Semelo-Shaw, LC-2026-186) was listed before Judge Elizabeth Cooke in the Upper Tribunal on 29 October 2026. At the time of writing, no Upper Tribunal judgment has been published.
The Widdenham Road decisions have drawn comment. Nearly Legal called it a can of worms for joint tenancy claims. Gatehouse Chambers has argued that it sits uneasily with earlier Upper Tribunal decisions, because each joint tenant normally claims only the rent they paid personally, not a joint sum.
Earlier Upper Tribunal cases dealt with how much a joint tenant can recover, not whether the claim can be brought at all. In Marcus v Kwok [2024] UKUT 219 (LC), the Upper Tribunal held that one joint tenant applying alone cannot recover rent paid by a fellow joint tenant who has not applied (§6). In Moreira v Morrison [2023] UKUT 233 (LC), it held that an order is calculated by reference to the rent actually paid by the tenants who apply. The tribunal’s reasoning in Widdenham Road, now applied again in this Brent case, goes further: a claim that leaves out a joint tenant fails altogether.
What it means for tenants
Joint tenants should claim together. On this tribunal’s view, if the tenancy is joint, every joint tenant should be a party, either as an applicant or added as a respondent. The point is now before the Upper Tribunal, but until it rules this is the cautious course. Missing tenants may not be addable once the 12-month limit has passed.
The landlord must have committed the offence. Where occupiers move in without the landlord’s knowledge, the tribunal may find the landlord committed no offence, or had a reasonable excuse.
Check which scheme applied, month by month. Licensing schemes start and end. Rent paid while no relevant scheme was in force cannot found an RRO for that offence.
NB: Even if the Upper Tribunal overturns the joint-tenant ruling in Widenham, this Kingsbury claim would still fail on its own facts.
For more on choosing the right respondent and applicants, see the Flat Justice RRO guide.
On a joint tenancy, bring everyone named on it into the claim, as applicants or as respondents.
Read the decision
Read the full decision on GOV.UK
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Contains information licensed under the Open Justice – Licence v1.0.
