Licensing offences now account for more than half of the £24.1 million in fines recorded against landlords and agents on the Mayor of London’s Rogue Landlord and Agent Checker, sharpening the compliance risk for owners and letting businesses operating across the capital.
The London-wide total comes from Kamma’s late-May analysis of the public checker, which City Hall says records landlords and agents who have been fined or prosecuted by London councils, the London Fire Brigade and redress schemes. While that database is not a like-for-like match with Landlord Knowledge’s own FOI dataset on council civil penalties, both sets of evidence point the same way: enforcement is clustering around licensing-heavy offences, and the financial risk has risen again since the Renters’ Rights Act took effect.
For landlords, the practical issue is simple. Licensing is no longer a side rule affecting a handful of HMOs. In much of London it has become one of the main routes through which councils identify breaches, issue penalties and support wider enforcement action.
Licensing is now the main enforcement lever in London
Kamma’s published breakdown says £14.85 million of the £24,125,937 logged on the Rogue Landlord and Agent Checker relates to licensing offences. Its analysis also says London councils have recorded 4,229 cases involving 2,010 landlords and 1,226 properties.
That matters because the public checker is wider than a simple fine league table. According to City Hall’s own description of the checker, it includes landlords and agents fined or prosecuted by London councils, fire safety cases from the London Fire Brigade, and expulsions from the main redress schemes. In other words, it is an enforcement signal as much as a raw penalties database.
Even with that caveat, the broad direction is hard to miss. Licensing sits at the centre of the picture because it gives councils a clear paper trail, a defined local rule set and a repeatable way to take action against landlords, superior landlords and agents.
FOI data supports the same trend – but it is not the same dataset
Landlord Knowledge’s own FOI investigation into council civil penalties found at least 901 civil penalties worth £5.23 million across 14 councils for 2023/24 and 2024/25. That sample included several London boroughs, with Camden alone disclosing 303 penalties worth more than £2.5 million.
The FOI figures should not be read as a direct cross-check on the £24.1 million London checker total. They cover only selected councils, only civil penalties, and only two financial years. The Rogue Landlord and Agent Checker is London-wide and includes prosecutions and other enforcement records beyond civil penalties.
But the offence mix still lines up. In the FOI returns, the most common offences were HMO licensing breaches, HMO management failures, selective licensing offences and improvement notice cases. That mirrors the checker-based picture in which licensing is doing most of the enforcement work.
This follows Landlord Knowledge’s report on the PRS Database and landlord enforcement checks, which highlighted how the national database is expected to help councils target activity. The London data suggests boroughs already have a mature local enforcement model built around licensing, and the national system is more likely to add to that than replace it.
RRA changes have made the downside bigger
The risk for landlords and agents has also increased since 1 May. Government guidance on civil penalties under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 confirms the maximum financial penalty for relevant housing offences rose from £30,000 to £40,000 for offences committed on or after that date.
The same guidance also makes clear that civil penalties for unlicensed HMOs and selective licensing offences can be imposed not just on the immediate landlord or manager, but in some cases on superior landlords as well. That is important in London, where layered ownership and management structures are common.
For agents, the warning is just as direct. Kamma says the average fine issued to a letting agency rose to £7,300 per offence in its earlier 2026 analysis. Even where the headline checker total mixes prosecutions and fines, the direction of travel is still towards more structured, better-evidenced and more expensive enforcement.
What this means for landlords
- If you operate in London: treat licensing as a front-line enforcement risk, not an admin backwater. Check every property against the live borough scheme, not last year’s rules.
- If you use agents or rent-to-rent structures: review who is responsible for licensing, renewals and evidence trails. The post-RRA regime gives councils more room to pursue more than one party.
- Watch for: overlap between local licensing schemes and the incoming national PRS Database, which could make gaps easier for councils to spot.
- Bottom line: the big London numbers and the borough FOI returns both suggest licensing paperwork is where many councils now start their landlord enforcement work.
Editor’s view
The main lesson here is not that every London landlord faces a huge fine. It is that licensing has become the easiest enforcement route for councils to scale, especially now higher post-RRA penalties sit behind it. Landlords and agents who still treat licensing as a box-ticking exercise are taking the wrong risk in the wrong part of the market.
Author: Editorial Team – UK landlord & buy-to-let news, policy, and finance
Published: 3 June 2026
Sources: London City Hall Rogue Landlord and Agent Checker guidance, Kamma analysis published via Goodlord, GOV.UK civil penalties guidance, Landlord Knowledge FOI investigation
Related reading: PRS Database to power landlord enforcement checks
📘 Renters’ Rights Act: Complete Landlord Guide
Everything you need to know about the new rules – 1 May 2026
