HMO Licenses and Regulations
Case reference FOI2018/01010
Published 28 September 2018
Request
The Licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation (Prescribed Description) (England) Order 2018 is due to come into effect on October 1, 2018. Similar legislation is in effect in Scotland. It requires private landlords with properties housing three or more tenants, forming more than one household, to obtain an HMO license. Those with properties in which tenants share a bathroom, kitchen or toilet facilities with others also require to be licensed. I would like to know if your local authority has conducted research to establish how many properties within its area fall into this category and are owned by landlords who now require to obtain an HMO license. Further, I would like to know if your local authority has conducted research to establish how many properties within its area are, as of September 3, 2018, compliant with the new regulations such that the landlord has been granted a license or could expect to be granted a license.
Response
There has been some research to ascertain the number of HMOs of 5 or more persons. We have looked at sources of information that are available ie there are 1800 student exempt properties on the Council Tax register.
We have a broad estimate that 270 plus HMOs may require licenses . To date we have received approximately 90 licence applications.
We have initiated a programme of inspections and identified that there are no serious breaches of the standards. However where any works are required these are being incorporated in to the licence conditions with a reasonable length of time given to comply.
Documents
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