[2025] UKUT 233 (LC)

This appeal from the First-tier Tribunal, Property Chamber (the FTT) raises a short point about the time limit for a tenant to make an application for a rent repayment order under Part 2 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 (the 2016 Act).

By section 41(1) of the 2016 Act a tenant may apply to the FTT for a rent repayment order against a person who has committed one of seven housing offences listed in section 40(3). Section 41(2)(b) then provides:

One of the offences to which rent repayment orders apply is the offence of being a person having control or management of an unlicensed HMO contrary to section 72(1) of the Housing Act 2004 (the 2004 Act). Section 72(5) of the 2004 Act provides a defence to that offence if the person concerned had a reasonable excuse for having control of or managing the unlicensed HMO.

The question raised by the appeal concerns the relationship between the statutory defence of reasonable excuse and the statutory time limit that the offence must have been committed in the period of 12 months ending with the date of the application for a rent repayment order: is an offence ‘committed’, in the sense intended by section 41(1)(b), at a time when the person concerned had a reasonable excuse for having control of or managing the unlicensed HMO.

The FTT decided that no offence was committed by the respondent while it was managing an unlicensed HMO at a time when it had a reasonable excuse for doing so without a licence. That meant that in this case the application for a rent repayment order brought against the respondent by its former tenants of the HMO, was out of time.

The appellants now appeal the FTT’s decision with the permission of this Tribunal. The appeal has been determined on the parties’ written representations which were prepared for the appellants by Mr Jamie McGowan of the advocacy group, Justice for Tenants, and responded to for the respondent by its solicitors, Jury O’Shea LLP. I am grateful to them both for their assistance.