Guidance

Houses in multiple occupation and residential property licensing reform: guidance for local housing authorities

Guidance for local housing authorities on extending mandatory licensing of houses in multiple occupation.

• From: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (2018 to 2021) and Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
• Published: 20 June 2018
• Last updated: 9 October 2019 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

Houses in multiple occupation and residential property licensing reform: guidance for local housing authorities

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Houses in multiple occupation and residential property licensing reform: guidance for local housing authorities

Ref: ISBN 978-1-4098-5397-8

PDF, 417 KB, 19 pages

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Details

Information about how private renting is affected by COVID-19

This document has been prepared as a guide for local housing authorities to help them understand how to implement the reforms to houses in multiple occupation (HMO) licensing.

Under the Housing Act 2004, larger HMOs that are 3 or more storeys and occupied by 5 or more persons forming at least 2 separate households are required to be licensed.

With effect from 1 October 2018 mandatory licensing of HMOs will be extended so that smaller properties used as HMOs in England which house 5 people or more in 2 or more separate households will in many cases require a licence.

New mandatory conditions to be included in licences have also been introduced, prescribing national minimum sizes for rooms used as sleeping accommodation and requiring landlords to adhere to council refuse schemes.

Published 20 June 2018
Last updated 9 October 2019 + show all updates

1. 9 October 2019

   An addition has been made to 2.7 Implementation, this is to include an encouragement of join up between planning and licensing teams at local authority level.

2. 20 December 2018

   Updated wording about how to handle enforcement on room sizes.

3. 20 June 2018

   First published.