Landlords who want to challenge a civil penalty imposed by their local council will have to fork out £200, plus a hearing fee of £300 – before factoring in the cost of legal advice.

The government has announced a new tiered fee framework for property tribunals, introduced to support the rights created by the Renters’ Rights Act.

New grounds for rent repayment orders will be brought into the existing fee regime, with a £114 application fee and a £227 hearing fee. Tenants have already been told they only need to pay £47 when seeking to challenge the rent proposed by a landlord on a s13 notice, with no hearing fee.

Property lawyer David Smith at Spector Constant & Williams suggests that local authorities could factor the fee increase into their penalty policies. “Many do not bother with smaller penalties at the moment, even if the landlord is in the wrong,” he says.

“I have often felt that they probably should as there tends to be a bit of a binary approach of either doing nothing or levying a substantial fine, whereas a more gradated approach might be more appropriate. But if smaller fines become uneconomic for landlords to challenge it would be clever policy to seek to issue them to defray some of their investigatory time and cost with a low risk of those fines being overturned.”

Agents

Propertymark says agents should prepare landlords for the possibility of more tribunal involvement, particularly around rent increases and local authority enforcement.

It adds: “Fee reform may help create a more consistent tribunal framework, but it cannot be a substitute for the wider investment, reform and operational improvements needed across the justice system.”

Suggests

It suggests that agents should ensure landlords understand that rent increases may face closer scrutiny and that clear, well-documented reasoning will help reduce disputes.

Tenants will be able to challenge proposed rent increases, challenge the validity of rent increase notices, and, within the first six months of a tenancy, ask the tribunal to terminate a tenancy if they believe the starting rent is above the open market rent.

Propertymark explains that the UK Government has stated that the average property chamber case costs the taxpayer more than £900, so even after the new structure is in place, proceedings will continue to be heavily subsidised.

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