FOI release

FOI8 : Offences against Housing Act 2004 or Protection from Eviction Act 1977

Some or all of the information requested was not provided because we determined that the cost to do so would exceed the appropriate limit.

Case reference FOI2026/00818

Received 1 August 2026

Published 28 August 2026

Request

Please provide records held of any past, present, or contemplated future prosecutions for offences against the Housing Act 2004, or for offences against the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. Please be sure to include the listed date of any trial or other court hearing, as well as any outcome such as verdict or sentence obtained. In case any relevant records are held, then please provide the information to: jwd248@proton.me. If NO relevant records are held, then please do not send your response to that aforementioned email address. In case the Housing Act 2004 offences do not have effect in the area of your authority, then please disregard this information request. Kind thanks, Mr John Wood Sent with Proton Mail secure email.

Response

In accordance with section 1(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), Oxford City Council (OCC) confirms that it holds information falling within the scope of your request.

However, OCC is relying on section 12(1) of the FOIA, as the estimated cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit prescribed by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

OCC advises that there are currently 625 open cases, each of which would need to be reviewed individually in order to determine whether it falls within the scope of your request, including whether it may become a prosecution case. OCC estimates that reviewing each case would take approximately 5 minutes. On that basis, reviewing 625 cases would require approximately 52 hours of officer time.

For local authorities, the appropriate limit under the Fees Regulations is £450, calculated at a statutory rate of £25 per hour, which is equivalent to 18 hours of work. The estimated 52 hours required to determine which of the 625 cases fall within the scope of the request therefore exceeds the appropriate limit.

Section 12(1) of the FOIA provides that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request where it estimates that the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit. Section 12 is not subject to the public interest test.

In accordance with section 17 of the FOIA, this response constitutes a refusal notice in respect of the information falling within the scope of section 12(1).

In accordance with section 16 of the FOIA, which relates to the duty to provide reasonable advice and assistance, OCC advises that you may wish to submit a narrower request, for example by limiting the request to a specified period, one of the Acts referred to in your request, or completed prosecutions only. Any revised request would be considered on its own terms.

OCC also publishes information about enforcement action in the private rented housing sector, including annual figures for landlords prosecuted and prosecution and financial penalty summaries. This information is available at: https://www.oxford.gov.uk/private-rented-housing-enforcement/enforcement-action-taken-private-rented-housing-sector.

If you disagree with any part of the response to your request, you are entitled to ask the Council for an internal review of the decision(s) made. You may do this by writing to the Monitoring Officer, by either email monitoringofficer@oxford.gov.uk – or by post to Monitoring Officer, Oxford City Council, Town Hall, St Aldate’s, Oxford, OX1 1BX. After the result of the internal review, if you remain dissatisfied, you may ask the Information Commissioner to intervene on your behalf. You may do this by writing to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Officer

Documents

There are no documents for this release.

This is Oxford City Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.

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