Property licensing
Find out about mandatory, additional and selective licences and if you need one. What happens if you do not have one when you should.
Contents
Mandatory licensing
Mandatory licensing is required for houses in multiple occupation (HMO).
A home is a HMO if the house is occupied by 3 or more people in 2 or more households (families).
A home is a large HMO if both of the following apply:
- at least 5 tenants live there, forming more than 1 household
- they share the toilet, bathroom or kitchen facilities with other tenants
Some buildings converted into self-contained flats are also HMOs if they do not comply with the 1991 or later building regulations.
These are called section 257 HMOs.
Planning permission for HMOs
Having a valid property licence is not the same as having planning permission.
You need planning permission if:
-
you want to let your property as an HMO to 7 or more people
-
your property is in an Article 4 direction area, no matter how many people will occupy it