A tenant in Rochester described real problems with her flat: no gas safety certificate, a poor energy rating, damp and rats, and the council had served a notice identifying a serious excess cold hazard. All she had wanted, she told the tribunal, was a warm flat. But a rent repayment order can only be made for a short list of offences, and none of her complaints was on it. Her claim for £12,000 was struck out, and she was ordered to pay £750 towards the landlord’s costs.
What happened
The tenant rented a flat in Rochester, in Medway, from a private landlord. She applied for a rent repayment order of £12,000, representing 12 months’ rent (§4). She acted for herself.
Her complaints were serious. She said there had never been a gas safety certificate, that the flat had an EPC rating of F without a valid exemption, that the landlord had misdescribed the gas supply, and that hazards such as excess cold, damp and rats had not been dealt with (§6). Medway Council had issued the landlord with a Hazard Awareness Notice on 4 September 2025, identifying a Category 1 excess cold hazard (§14).
The landlord’s solicitors wrote to the tribunal in February 2026 pointing out that none of these matters was one of the offences for which a rent repayment order can be made, and asking for the claim to be dismissed (§12). The tenant’s response was to ask the tribunal to look at the full evidence (§15). The landlord also offered to settle for £500 (§36).
How the tribunal decided
A tribunal can only make a rent repayment order if it is sure that the landlord committed one of a short list of offences, such as running an unlicensed HMO or failing to comply with an improvement notice (§18). The tribunal found that neither the application nor the tenant’s statement relied on any of them. As to the council’s notice, it said “this notice is neither an improvement notice nor a prohibition order” (§28).
The tribunal accepted that it still had power to consider the application (§29), but it concluded that, unless the grounds were changed, “The application, as stated, simply cannot succeed.” (§30).
At the hearing the tenant asked to rely instead on harassment or unlawful eviction, pointing to emails in which the landlord had offered a rent-free period and later withdrawn it (§25–§26). The tribunal refused to allow this change. The landlord had not had notice of it and could not fairly answer it on the day; the new ground had not been properly worked out; and the tenant had not addressed the problem, raised months earlier, before the hearing, so an adjournment would take up a disproportionate share of the tribunal’s resources (§31). The application was therefore struck out, and the tenant’s fees were not refunded (§33–§34).
The landlord asked for costs of £3,883 (§35). The tenant explained that “all she had wanted to do, she said, was to have a warm flat.” (§37). The tribunal found that she had acted unreasonably in bringing and continuing the claim: it had not failed on the evidence but because none of the matters she relied on could support an order, and she had been warned early (§39). It also took into account the £500 offer, which was better than the result. But it found the landlord’s costs excessive for a straightforward case and assessed them at £750 (§41–§44).
What it means for tenants
First, a rent repayment order is not a general remedy for poor housing conditions. Missing gas safety certificates, a poor energy rating and disrepair matter a great deal, but they do not on their own allow a tribunal to order repayment of rent. A Hazard Awareness Notice is not an improvement notice.
Second, if the other side says early on that a claim cannot succeed, take that seriously and check the point before the hearing. Costs orders against tenants are rare, but this decision shows they can be made where a claim was, on its stated terms, bound to fail.
Third, settlement offers matter. Here, the tribunal noted when deciding costs that the landlord’s £500 offer was better than the outcome the tenant achieved.
Our Flat Justice RRO guide lists the offences that can support a rent repayment order and explains how to plead them.
Poor conditions alone do not support an RRO: check that what the landlord did is one of the listed offences before you apply.
Read the decision
Read the full decision on GOV.UK
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
