Licensing offences now account for more than half of the £24.1 million in fines handed to landlords and letting agents in London.

New analysis from Kamma shows that these offences were worth £14.8 million on the Mayor of London's Rogue Landlord Database.

Since the launch of the database in 2018, licensing offences have moved from a niche enforcement category to the single biggest driver of penalties in the capital, which has a record 162 active licensing schemes, with a third having launched in the past 12 months alone.

Kamma explains that 88% of London is now covered by some form of property licensing, with 28 of 32 London boroughs operating discretionary licensing restrictions. Its analysis shows the average fine issued to a managing agent has increased by 14% since November 2025, reaching £7,300 per offence.

Total

Waltham Forest leads the capital on total fines (£5.9 million from 714 cases), while Camden has brought more cases than any other borough (964), operating a high-volume model focused on consistent pressure. Kensington & Chelsea sits in a category of its own on severity, averaging more than £108,000 per case through a smaller number of very large prosecutions targeting the most serious offenders.

Councils are no longer relying on self-reporting or reactive complaint-handling, reports Kamma. Tower Hamlets provides direct legal support to tenants pursuing Rent Repayment Orders at the First Tier Tribunal, securing more than £1.3 million for renters to date. Camden and Islington run prosecution and tenant RRO support in parallel, turning a single council conviction into compounding consequences for the landlord.

Story

Orla Shields, CEO at Kamma, says the real story is how councils are enforcing rules. “Camden and Islington are running a prosecutorial pipeline that turns council convictions into near-automatic Rent Repayment Orders for tenants,” she adds. “Tower Hamlets is providing free legal representation. With 162 schemes now active and the Renters’ Rights Act in force, the compliance environment has fundamentally changed. For agents in particular, the assumption that licensing complexity is someone else’s problem is one the fine data clearly no longer supports.”

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