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17/12/25 3:30 pm
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A rethink of sentencing for housing offences including illegal eviction could see councils revert from using civil penalty notices to punish errant landlords.
The independent Sentencing Council has launched a public consultation on guidelines covering the offences of illegal eviction and unlawful harassment as well as those related to HMOs and housing standards.
The council explains that its study has been prompted by concerns about low level, inconsistent and diverging penalties imposed at magistrates’ and Crown Courts across the country.
The maximum penalty for illegal eviction is two years’ imprisonment, but for the other offences and for corporations it's an unlimited fine. The consultation seeks views on proposed sentence starting points and ranges within those maximums, which the courts would use, adjusted for aggravating and mitigating factors, to set the sentence.
For cases with high culpability when victims are deprived of property, the proposals suggest a starting point of one year’s custody, while for HMO offences where the landlord is highly culpable and their action has had a serious impact on a tenant, it proposes a band F fine – typically 5-700% of weekly income.
Councils typically favour issuing penalties but can have trouble collecting them. Bradford Council recently revealed that landlords and agents have failed to pay more than £1.5 million in CPNs since 2018.
Property lawyer David Smith, partner at Spector Constant & Williams, explains that one of the justifications for introducing civil penalties was the low penalties being levied by magistrates. “Many local authorities now rely on penalties - even though a lot are not collected - to support their services, or at least to make the case for services internally,” he adds. “If penalties were far greater would local authorities return to prosecutions or stick with civil penalties?”
Between 2020 and 2024, most offenders (80%) received a fine of £1,000 or less for unlawful eviction and harassment of occupier. In 2024, of those sentenced for HMO offences, the average fine was about £2,800. Since 2017, the volume of those sentenced for housing standards has fallen to about 50 offenders in 2024, with an average fine of £2,000.
The 12-week consultation is open until 9th April.
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