You can apply for or renew a private rented property licence on our property portal.
We may contact you to arrange an appointment to inspect the property.
The inspection will check what you’ve put in your application form and carry out a risk assessment of the conditions at your property. The risk assessment is used to make a quick assessment of the condition of your property and to prioritise any necessary further inspections.
We will then send you and any other interested parties a draft licence or a notice of refusal to grant a licence.
Once we have sent you the draft licence or refusals, you or anyone wanting to make representations will have 14 days to tell us if you disagree with our decision.
A panel of two managers and a legal adviser examines the representations. They do this within eight weeks of receiving them.
We may contact you to discuss your representation. If we do not agree with it, we will issue a full licence with the same conditions stated in the draft. If we agree with any of the representations, we will issue a new draft licence. It will list the changed conditions.
There will then be another 14-day representation period of all interested parties.
If we do not receive any representations we will let you know if the licence has been granted or refused. Where a licence has been granted, you will receive the full licence.
You can appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) if you disagree with the full licence or a final decision to refuse a licence after a representation. This is an independent body.
You must make appeals within 28 days of the decision being appealed against. You will generally need to pay a fee.
After we issue a full licence, we will visit the property. We will make sure the licensee has met all the conditions.