I am a private landlord with private sector tenants. My current tenants last week received a letter addressed to “To whom it may concern” from Islington Council, referring to an undated prior communication (which was never received) and demanding that I register the three bed property (shred by three tenants) as a House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) within 7 days. I have now managed to complete the application for an “Additional Licence”, a mandatory one not being required, although the council have just asked for a fire safety certificate and fire safety inspection report which I didn’t believe were required under current legislation - so more expense and hassle. This will take me a few days to organise, continuing the worry, especially as they threaten a £30k fine for “non-compliance”.
The cost of registration was an eye watering £864. This really does feel like an additional tax. Given mortgage rate increases, withdrawal of tax relief on interest for non-incorporated landlords and taxing residual rental income at the marginal rate, this is just another incentive for landlords such as myself to exit the rental market altogether.
I wanted to post this here to let others know. No doubt some have already been affected but I can see this being adopted by more local authorities as they look to raise additional revenue.
Most London boroughs and many other Councils around the country now have Additional Licensing for 3 and 4 person HMOs. Its a landlords job to know this, not to wait for the Council to chase them. Make sure you pay the fee now even if some of the paperwork has to follow after submission of the application. You are protected from the moment your payment is processed.
Selective HMO licencing has been around for years. I’m surprised you didn’t know this. I hope you are upto date with other HMO laws & obligations re design, fire barriers, fire alarms etc, otherwise you might have other surprises yet to come.
Are you a member of the N*** Landlord Association. I know they do some training for HMO Landlords you may wish to look at.
Karl11 don’t agree with what you say about Selective Licensing it was only ever meant to be up to 3 selective problem areas of a Borough which is the way legislation meant it to be other than that it has not been around for years.
It was only late last year that the Housing Secretary of State Mr Michael Gove gave some Councils permission to make it Borough wide which it wasn’t even supposed to be. The same guy that dreamt up THE RENTERS REFORM BILL which is big of him considering he lived in grace in favour accommodation himself that caused the problems. The reason for hundreds of thousands of landlords to sell up doing enormous damage to Tenants.
I dont object to licensing per se, but the publicity has been woeful.
Selective Licensing came in with the 2004 Housing Act.
The Selective licensing was never borough wide only up to 3 problem wards of a Borough, so get that right it was Mr Gove anti-land Housing Secretary told them only last year 2023 that they could do it to stitch us up more.
I take your point, but whether initially brought in for only certain properties or not, it has been around for long enough & been in the public arena for long enough for any Landlord to have been aware of it, and to have checked if their property was covered or not.
I worry that any Landlord not aware of that, would likely be unaware of an abundance of other Landlord legislation, hence my advice to to original poster to check what training would be available that might suit them.
Just be glad, you got a letter and applied for it. The consequences can be serious. If you did not apply for a licence, what else have you missed out on? The penalties for getting things wrong can be painful.
Is your address correct on land registry? They shoudl have been writting to you.
Just email them you will send the documents.
There was never a restriction on how many wards could be included in a selective licensing scheme. The local authority has to designate the geographical area it wants to include and it will depend on the stated purposes of the scheme. For example for anti-social behaviour they would gather figures from across their borough and designate accordingly. Many of the early schemes did only designate a few wards, although I don’t know where you get the figure of 3 from. The Secretary of State has to sign off new applications, so it may well be that there was a change of policy that gave a green light to Councils for wider schemes.
Incidentally, Selective Licensing has nothing to do with Additional Licensing or HMOs, which was the question in the original post.