Four stories today, one shared lesson: assertion is cheap and paperwork is what actually wins the argument. A Haringey tribunal has just put a number on what “rogue landlord” costs, London’s mayor is funding the officers who chase the next one, a solicitor’s new toolkit is trying to arm landlords with tribunal-ready rent evidence, and a fresh market intelligence report has the South East posting the country’s worst run of price reductions. Read together, they’re a reminder that compliance and evidence are no longer things you can wave at — increasingly, someone is checking.
A rogue landlord ruling that puts a real number on it
The First-tier Property Tribunal has ordered Honora “Rita” Moynihan, who let a property on Roseberry Avenue without a licence under Haringey’s selective licensing scheme between February 2023 and February 2024, to repay £12,480 — 80% of the £15,600 in rent claimed, as LandlordZone reports. The tenants, a family of six represented by Justice for Tenants, had documented a rat infestation, a defective oven and hob, electrical supply problems, damaged bathroom and kitchen units, damp throughout the property, missing prescribed tenancy information, and repairs left outstanding after an improvement notice served in August 2023. Moynihan argued she had inherited the property with no prior letting experience and applied for a temporary licence once she learned it was required, though the application was refused. The judge was unmoved: “She was dismissive of the applicants’ concerns… She was not contrite at all. The tribunal formed the very clear impression that she is a poor landlord, in fact a ‘rogue landlord’.”
My read: 80% of a year’s rent is close to the top of the rent-repayment-order range, and the disrepair evidence is what pushed it there — a bare licensing breach on its own tends to attract a lower percentage. “I inherited it and didn’t know” is not a defence a tribunal will discount the penalty for, and turning up dismissive of the tenants’ complaints visibly made things worse. This is also a useful data point for anyone who thinks selective licensing enforcement is mostly theoretical: a specific address, a specific landlord, a five-figure order, reported by name.
If you acquire a let property by inheritance, portfolio purchase or any other route, check its selective and additional licensing status on day one — before the first repair request, not after a tenant complains. You take on the compliance clock the moment you take on the tenancy, whether or not you knew the scheme existed.
London puts money behind chasing the next one
The Mayor of London has committed £400,000 to a new Renters Rights Enforcement Fund, covering training for enforcement officers across London boroughs and support services from two organisations offering free advice to the capital’s roughly 2.7 million private renters, as Property Industry Eye reports. Sadiq Khan said: “I will always stand up for London’s renters who deserve to feel secure in their homes and confident that they can challenge rogue landlords when their rights are ignored,” adding that “those rights will only make a difference if people know about them, can use them and have somewhere to go for help.”
My read: this is the missing half of the Haringey story above. Selective licensing and the Renters’ Rights Act give councils plenty of paper powers, but enforcement has always been rate-limited by officer time, and boroughs have been open about not having enough of it. Funded training capacity, plus advice services that make tenants more likely to know when they have a case, both push in the same direction — more complaints reaching a tribunal, not fewer. My bet is other city and county authorities follow London’s lead once the borough enforcement numbers start showing up, rather than waiting for central government to fund it nationally.
Landlords in London, and anyone holding stock in the commuter belt where tenants increasingly know their rights from London-based advice services, should treat enforcement risk as rising rather than static. A compliance gap that has sat unnoticed for years is not guaranteed to stay that way.
A rent increase is only as good as the evidence behind it
Property solicitor Tessa Shepperson, founder of Landlord Law, is launching a Market Rent and Tribunal Kit aimed at landlords using the Renters’ Rights Act’s Section 13 process to raise rents, including a comparable-properties assessment pack, guidance on weighing differences in size, condition and specification, and sections on evidence and appeals, as LandlordZone reports. Shepperson’s point is blunt: “You need proper evidence. If the tribunal decides the market rent is the same as, or higher than, the landlord has proposed, then they’re home and dry.” A recent tribunal case involving Get Living established that actual achieved rents carry more weight than advertised asking prices when a tribunal is testing what “market rent” actually means. The article also flags a real risk in the other direction: a £47 tribunal application fee is low enough that some tenants may challenge an increase simply to delay when it takes effect, not because they think it is wrong.
My read: this is the first sign of a proper evidence-gathering market forming around Section 13, and I expect it to become as routine as an EPC ahead of a rent review within a year or two. The detail worth remembering is the Get Living point — a landlord building their case from Rightmove asking prices rather than rents actually agreed on comparable lets is building a weaker case than they think, and a tribunal will discount it accordingly. If you are ever asked to support this kind of evidence with local market knowledge, cite what similar properties actually let for, not what they were listed at.
Anyone planning a Section 13 increase should start a comparables file — genuinely let, not just advertised, properties — well before serving notice. With the fee this low, treat a challenge as the likely outcome of a poorly evidenced increase, not the exception.
The South East is where the price cuts are landing hardest
Sprift’s Sales Market Intelligence Report for July 2026 shows new listings up 2.6% to 209,941 and sales agreed up 1.1% to 114,561, but a national conversion rate that slipped to 54.6%, with 95,380 listings still unconverted and 31.3% of stock nationally carrying a price reduction, as Property Industry Eye reports. The regional spread is the story: Scotland converts 77.0% of listings against London’s 39.4%, the widest gap of the year, while the South East has the highest price-reduction rate in the country at 43.6% of listings and the largest unconverted backlog at 17,637 properties. Sprift founder Matt Gilpin put it simply: “July is another reminder that there really is no such thing as ‘the UK housing market’.”
My read: yesterday’s Lloyds data already had the South East as one of only two regions in outright annual price decline; this report, built from a completely different methodology — agreed sales and listings rather than mortgage valuations — independently puts the region at the top of the country for price cuts and the biggest pile of unsold stock. Two unrelated data sets agreeing within 24 hours is not noise. I’d treat the 56.2% national jump in planning applications with more caution, though — the report does not break that figure down by region, so I cannot say whether the South East is driving it or lagging behind.
If you are selling in the South East right now, price expecting at least one reduction to be normal rather than a failure, and budget for a longer void between instruction and completion than the national averages suggest. If you are buying, the backlog of unconverted stock is genuine negotiating room.
What I’d actually do
- Acquiring a let property, by inheritance or purchase? Check selective and additional licensing status on day one — a tribunal will not discount a penalty for not knowing, and disrepair evidence pushes rent repayment orders toward the maximum.
- Landlord or portfolio owner in or near London? Treat enforcement risk as rising, not static, now that funded officer capacity is arriving — a long-unnoticed compliance gap is not guaranteed to stay unnoticed.
- Planning a Section 13 rent increase? Build a comparables file from rents actually achieved, not advertised, before you serve notice — the £47 tribunal fee is low enough that a weak case will be tested.
- Selling or valuing in the South East? Budget for a price reduction and a longer void as the norm right now — the region currently has the country’s highest reduction rate and its largest backlog of unconverted stock.
If today’s notes have you checking licensing risk on a property you’re about to take on, bracing for a Section 13 challenge, or wondering whether a South East asking price needs revisiting, the practice offers full building surveys and Buy to Let Surveys across the South East. Get in touch.
Small print. General commentary, not advice for your specific circumstances — regulations, schemes and deadlines change, and your property is not the average property. Sources linked were accurate when read on 11 August 2026.