A legal expert has outlined the complexity of increasingly-common Rent Repayment Orders and how they impact agents and landlords faced with combating them.

Des Taylor from Landlord Licensing & Defence says failure to successfully defend RROs can leave landlords or their representatives with a permanent public record online.

He comments: “Rent repayment orders are strict liability offences. If a property was unlicensed when the law required one, the landlord is guilty regardless of whether the agent failed them or they were unaware of the requirement.”

He says the only adequate defence is to have the evidence that proves the landlord’s case – for example, time-stamped proof of a licence application, payment receipts, bank statements, council acknowledgements and detailed phone call records. Without this, a tribunal hearing a tenant’s or local authority’s complaint will take the council’s word that no valid licence existed.

And he says emotional arguments, such as claims about tenant behaviour and disputes over fire safety items, simply don’t work.

“They have no validity in law. What is even worse, they actually increase the landlord’s penalties and leave a permanent public record of an ineffective defence and evidence of poor landlording visible in Google to all and sundry – including the landlord’s mortgage provider, their employer and, if they are in a regulated profession, a regulating authority as well.”

This may well play into the hands of agents wishing to emphasise the value they add to landlords, because Taylor insists that there must be solid documentation to defend against a RRO.

He points to a case where Landlord Licensing & Defence was able to defend a landlord and have the rent repayment order case completely thrown out. This was only because they had the complete documentation, which they were able to present to the tribunal. From payment proof to council emails, this made the council’s position impossible to support.

And he adds: “Rejecting expert legal help is a costly mistake, and one that landlords make to their ultimate cost. Professional representation is not an expense; it is an investment in minimising otherwise massive financial penalties and in averting severe and very public reputational damage.

“Achieving successful anonymity is something landlords are not capable of without expert assistance; they face public shaming because most landlords walk into a tribunal like lambs to the slaughter.”