Commentary on provisions of Act Section 12: Offences
This section provides that a landlord or letting agent who breaches the prohibitions in Sections 1 and 2, and who has had a financial penalty imposed or been convicted for a different breach within the last five years, commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to an unlimited fine.
	An enforcement authority has discretion to decide whether to impose a financial penalty or to pursue a prosecution in each individual case. A person cannot be convicted of an offence if a financial penalty has already been imposed in respect of the same breach.
	Subsection (6) amends the Housing and Planning Act 2016 to provide that an offence under this section is a banning order offence for the purposes of Part 2 of that Act. This means that if a landlord or agent is convicted of such an offence a local housing authority may apply to the court to ban them from letting housing and/or acting as a letting agent and/or property manager in England for at least a year.
	If the court makes a banning order on that application, the local housing authority must make an entry in the database of rogue landlords and property agents under that Act. An entry may also be made if a person is convicted of a banning offence committed at the time they are a residential landlord or property agent or if two financial penalties have been imposed on a person for such an offence in a 12-month period.