Our grateful thanks to Radhika Shah of Harrow Law Centre for this note of a judgment in an unlawful eviction case, with a substantial damages award.
Zeinab Al Khafaji -v- Mr Dixit Shah – Claim no. K01W1476. 29 January 2026
The Claimant was the sole assured shorthold tenant of the Defendant for over a decade with her 3 youngest children aged 12, 8 and 5 at the date of eviction.
The Claimant went on holiday with her 3 children and notified the Defendant, who agreed to carry out some works to the kitchen in her absence. On 1st January 2023, the Claimant’s older son discovered that the locks had been changed and all her belongings removed from the property.
A claim for damages for illegal eviction was issued on 20th July 2023. Some of the Claimant’s items were returned but irreplaceable family photos were never recovered. The claimant was provided with emergency accommodation by the local authority over 20 miles away causing disruption to the children’s schooling and the loss of her employment. Her mental health declined during this period and one of her children was referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
The application was defended with the Defendant stating in the Defence that the tenant was surrendered by the Claimant’s former partner whilst she was away. This was denied and, in any event, under matter of law he had no right to surrender the tenancy as he was not a joint tenant. The Defendant failed to provide any disclosure and failed to provide any witness evidence to substantiate his defence. By the time of the trial, on 29 January 2026, he was well over a year out of time for both.
The Defendant’s last-minute application to adjourn the trial was dismissed and the defence was struck out by DJ Clark (CPR 39.3(1)) at trial on 29th January 2026.
DJ Clark heard the Claimant’s evidence and awarded damages to the Claimant in the sum of £35,860.18 comprising of general damages for trespass @£325/day for 61 days (£19,825). plus 10% Simmons uplift, aggravated damages of £5,000, exemplary damages of £5,000 and special damages as claimed of £4,052.68.
Interest was ordered as follows:
(i) At 8% on special damages from the date of issue to the date of expiry of the Claimant’s Part 36 offer in the sum of £183.86;
(ii) At 2% on general damages from the date of issue to the date of expiry of the Claimant’s Part 36 offer in the sum of £360.69, and
(iii) At 8% on the judgment debt from the date of expiry of the Claimant’s Part 36 offer to the 29th January 2026 pursuant to CPR 36.17(4)(a) in the sum of £5,634.30.
The Defendant was ordered to pay the Claimant’s costs, on the standard basis from the date of issue to the date of the expiry of the Part 36 offer and on the indemnity basis thereafter.
Notes –
Counsel representing the Claimant up to trial – Emma Turnball of One Pump Court Chambers and counsel representing the Claimant at trial – Martin Hodgson at Pump Court
Solicitor representing Claimant – Radhika Shah at Harrow Law Centre
Glad she got a result in civil court. 3 Years in the making. A PFEA prosecution would have taken the same time and would have garnered somewhere between a few hundred pounds fine and community service……if Ms Khafaji had even stayed with it that long. £40,000 CPNs are the future, secured against Mr Shah’s property with forced sale for recovery……oh and let’s not forget the RRO.
What I would also like to see is a perpetrator forced to pay the full local authority costs of Part VII rehousing in such an event, including officer time spent and any relevant TA costs.
Presumably she can now also apply for a Rent Repayment Order in the FTT?
Yes, although would have to prove to the criminal standard, in the absence of a prosecution by the council. I think the civil damages award may be considered by the Tribunal.
My intuition is that there’s no reason why they should be: intuitively they ought to have nothing to do with one another, with common law damages being compensatory and RROs being penal. In fact, the legislation seems often to cast them as complementary to one another, such as with the provisions of requiring a LA to inform tenants upon a conviction of their eligibility to seek a RRO.
Furthermore, Judge Cooke in the UT has set out a hierarchy of the severity of offence types relative to one another based on their row numbers in the statutory table in HPA 2016. I recall s1(2) (3) and (3A) PEA 1977 and s6 CLA 1977 being at the very most severe end of the hierarchy, with licensing offences being at the most mild end, though of course licensing offences regularly attract awards that are very healthily high percentages of the rent paid. To me, this suggests that PEA/CLA 77 should usually attract close to 100% awards. She said in the case I’m thinking of that when figuring the amount of the award, the severity of the offence (firstly in its type in relation to the other relevant types of offences, and secondly in relation to other offences of the same type) should be weighed, followed by statutory considerations of s44 HPA 16 factors to inform adjustments.
I can’t readily think of any statutory provisions, or any case law, that would give a basis for the tribunal to consider whether or not other parallel proceedings have been pursued.
In fact, in this sense, if one broadens the scope of parallel proceedings to include financial penalties or criminal convictions, all of the relevant provisions would then point the other way, toward having the tribunal’s awards be more severe than it otherwise would be.
You mix up a criminal prosecution for illegal eviction with a civil claim for illegal eviction.
Illegal eviction in civil claims is a statutory tort, and can include exemplary damages, which are, very specifically, not ‘compensatory’.
You also mix up ‘may have regard’ with ‘must have regard’.
On the possibility that a Tribunal might consider civil damages in a county court claim when looking at an RRO, see the Upper Tribunal here https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKUT/LC/2024/293.html It is not determinative on the issue, but clearly something the UT was willing to consider possible.
“Had he taken the opportunity to attend the hearing it is nevertheless possible that he might have persuaded the FTT to order repayment of a lesser sum (perhaps taking into account the compensation which had already been paid). But there is no guarantee that he would have secured a better outcome and the FTT would certainly have been entitled to order repayment of the full amount of the rent even having regard to the compensation already paid by Mr Osagie.”
That said, I’ve never been able to work out any possible rationale for the provisions of s46 HPA 2016, and on top of this it is now being expanded to cover cases of licensing offences as well as the other more severe ones which it already does.
Seriously, you can’t?? Isn’t it obvious?
Is it to be inferred that the landlord was unrepresented at the trial?
Don’t know. It is certainly possible. But then, if they had competent representation, they would likely have settled asap.
There is a struck off solicitor of the same name, but no idea if it is the same person.
Not sure if I mixed them up or not.
I had in mind at first specifically civil damages, though admittedly I did not consider the, indeed possible, penal components of these, as they’re mainly (and frequently solely – no pun intended) decidedly compensatory, and not penal. In any event, civil proceedings are, I think, fundamentally about compensation in nature.
Then I offered to ‘broaden the scope’ of the phrase ‘parallel proceedings’ so as to encompass types that are in fact fundamentally penal in nature, such as financial penalties and criminal convictions, so as to address both fundamental types (ie largely compensatory and largely penal) of proceedings/disposals for HPA 16 relevant offences.
Part of me now thinks of s46 which mandates a maximum award in case of a prior criminal conviction (though this has always seemed inexplicably arbitrary and capricious, conceivably/effectively ceding tribunal’s judicial discretion to local authorities’ non-judicial prosecutorial discretion, pegging thé tribunal’s judgment of nuance to the potentially administrative and totally irrelevant, perhaps often austerity related, determinations as to whether or not to prosecute an offence which the tribunal must necessarily have already been satisfied beyond reasonable doubt was committed for s46 to even be relevant), which shows that Parliament’s view of RROs was not as at tension or odds with other remedies that are independently available. Again, in case there was a criminal conviction, there could have also been a CCO or even a confiscation order, and possibly a fine or prison term.
It’s hard to imagine a tribunal judge reducing an RRO award, other than on s44 grounds, on the basis that (or even simply in circumstances of) the respondent had already been issued a fine and/or jail term.
In case of civil proceedings’ outcomes, it seems to me even less conceivable.
In case of prior proceedings, whether criminal or civil in nature, the common law judge would presumably have made the orders that they did aware of the other remedies that are available on the statute book, the relevant parties’ entitlement and prerogative to seek them or not seek them, and the possibility that they will also be brought to bear on the defendant presently before them.
The jurisdictions of tribunals and courts are, after all, mutually independent.
If an adverse criminal disposal could result in augmented, and not diminished, quantum for a RRO, then it is in a sense difficult for me to see how a proper adverse civil disposal could result in a diminished quantum for a RRO.
Then another part of me is able to see how exemplary damages actually do quite resemble RROs in both their effect and nature, and I do see where the judicial urge to account for them in reckoning RRO quantum would come from.
Though as you say, it is something that’s possible, not required. And often in these sorts of cases, particularly due to the gravity of the PEA 77 offences, judicial sympathy is more inclined toward the applicant than the respondent.
Finally, thanks for the case reference, I shall definitely have a look.
PS: any idea what could be the idea behind s46 HPA 16 (soon to be expanded to “less severe” s72/95 offences) (amount of order following conviction)?
Criminal prosecutions don’t necessarily (or indeed often) result in compensation to the tenant.
See my other reply on s.46 HPA.
Nor, I would have thought, do civil claims often result in punitive/exemplary forms of damages!
Exemplary damages are pretty common on civil unlawful eviction claims
Apparently not obvious to me.
Well, where the landlord has had a conviction, or civil penalty levied (and not appealed), in respect of the offence for which the RRO is sought, the the FtT should make an RRO without taking into account the s.44(4) factors (eg conduct of tenants, landlord’s financial circumstances). The effect is to remove some ways in which the landlord can put forward mitigation as to the level of RRO.
Yes, well that is clearly the effect of the section, and indeed quite obvious and self explanatory to my mind. What is not however is its rationale or purpose:
Let us assume, beyond reasonable doubts, that the landlord has indeed committed the offence. Then a FTT, mags, or crown court alike would all three be obliged to so find.
The operability of s46, therefore, depends solely on the caprice of LA (or indeed public) prosecutorial discretion, which may depend on many factors that are not relevant at all to culpability, guilt, or the interests of justice in the given case, such as the prosecuting authority’s current administrative capacities.
It allows the non-judicial prosecuting/LHA to essentially usurp the tribunal’s judicial discretion under s44.
Suppose that Al illegally evicts his tenants (who were model, faultless tenants) with burly thugs and Alsatians at knifepoint and leaves them with significant injuries as a result. While Ben illegally evicts his tenants but simply by changing the lock while they were out, and his tenants had poor conduct including years of rent arrears and running a grow house in the property. Al wanted to raise the rent and didn’t like his tenants asking him to use the formal procedure but Ben, a pensioner, was struggling to feed his family.
Assuming as it seems that both landlords are guilty of the offence, both would need to emerge from courts, if charged, with convictions, but Al would surely be sentenced more harshly, while Ben might well get off with a fine or discharge.
Yet, Al lives in an area where the LHA has cut all of its TRO team, and the best his tenants might get is “speak to the police”, or perhaps a referral to SR if they’re lucky. Ben, meanwhile, lives in an area where the LHA still diligently prosecutes offenders.
Due to s46, a tribunal making a RRO against Al would be obliged to go through s44(4) considerations, while one making one against Ben would be statutorily obliged to make a maximum award.
What’s the point of that section?
The statute has a clear point. Whether LAs actively enforce is a separate matter. And that has nothing to do with usurping the Tribunal’s s.44 discretion.
So, what is its point?? Not yet clear to me.
What is the point from which the matter of whether or not LAs prosecute is separate?
Of course allowing LAs to usurp judicial discretion cannot have been the aim of effectively giving them that ability, but that nonetheless to me seems to be its only effect.
Simplistically and superficially, I might speculate that it is a form of “delegating” judicial effort to the prosecuting authority, such that, with the widely perceived additional solemnity and weight of actual crown proceedings in a criminal court, it may be reasoned that “if the LA had deemed it a sufficiently severe case as that it had even seen fit to intervene with criminal prosecution, then it must well and truly have been a very severe case indeed, thus automatically meriting a mandatory maximum order so as to take away the tribunal’s s44 discretion”.
But that reasoning ultimately to me seems rather simplistic and flimsy so much as to make it to my mind rather implausible as the actual rationale, therefore leaving me yet puzzled by it until now.
All of HA 2004 offences are subject to enforcement decisions and practices of the LA (although RRA makes it a duty to enforce some of them, including illegal eviction, which can under the RRA be by way of civil penalty). Under your logic, why should there be any legislation on HA 2004 offences and how they are enforced, because always subject to the vagaries of the particular LA?
The point is clear, if an LA has enforced, either by criminal prosecution, or unappealed civil penalty, the offence has already been established to have been committed. (Where there has been no such action, the tenant will have to prove the RRO offence to the criminal standard). What is more, the landlord will have had their shot at mitigation – either in the prosecution, or in appealing the amount of the penalty. Why, in those circumstances, should the landlord have a second chance at mitigation for what, as you pointed out in another comment, is a penalty, not compensation to the tenant?
And no, it isn’t ‘delegating judicial function to the LA’. RROs and the FtT are creatures of statute. There is only judicial discretion to the extent that the statute allows it.
Now if you are still confused, I can only say that it is because your whole way of thinking about this is wrong from first principles.