UK Offence Report

Criminal offence

regulation 6 of The Housing Benefit (Information from Landlords and Agents) Regulations 1997

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

6 Any failure by the supplier to supply relevant information to the requirer as, when and how required under these Regulations shall be an offence under section 113 of the Act and there may be recovered from the supplier, on summary conviction for this offence, penalties not exceeding—

a for any one offence, level

3 on the standard scale; or

b for an offence of continuing any such failure after conviction, £40 for each day on which it is so continued.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a supplier
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a supplier meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach regulation 6?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Housing Benefit (Information from Landlords and Agents) Regulations 1997.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£1,000
Standard scale
Level 3
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
8 October 1997
In force from
3 November 1997
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations implement provisions of the Social Security Administration (Fraud) Act 1997. Regulation 2 gives local authorities administering housing benefit and any person exercising such functions for them a power to require certain landlords and their agents to provide information as to their interests in residential property, including that of any associated bodies (regulations 3 and 4). Regulation 5 makes provision as to the time when and way in which that information is to be provided to the person requiring it. Regulation 6 makes it a criminal offence to fail to provide such information, punishable by a fine at level 3 (currently £1,000), plus, for a continuing offence after conviction, a daily penalty of £40 for each day on which it continues. An assessment of the costs to business of applying the provisions of section 11 of the Social Security Administration (Fraud) Act 1997 was placed in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament on 24 January 1997 when the amendment inserting section 11 in the Social Security Administration Bill was introduced. No changes to that assessment arise from the application of these Regulations. Copies of this assessment can be obtained from the Department of Social Security, Room 5/05A, The Adelphi, 1-11 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6HT (telephone 0171-962-8299).

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.88.

Basis
the provision says the conduct “is an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens
Confidence
0.88 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source