Text version
Derby. A city for all ages

 

03. Houses in Multiple Occupation and Licensing


You can use the links below to quickly access information on this page:


What is a House in Multiple Occupation - HMO?

HMOs are considered by government to pose a greater risk to tenants health and safety than singly occupied dwellings. Additional specific housing standards legislation therefore applies to all HMOs and in some cases the landlords of the property will require a Licence. Government has now defined HMOs under sections 254 and 257 of the Housing Act 2004.

Under Section 254, an HMO is a dwelling let to two or more ‘households’ that share kitchen and/or bathroom facilities. Household in this context means a person or persons of the same family or other prescribed relationship, such as carer. Two person house or flat shares are excluded, so if you rent or let property with three or more tenants who form two or more households, it is an HMO. Therefore, most students lets, professionals sharing, buildings containing bed-sits or non-self contained flats or, indeed, any other dwelling with three or more unrelated tenants sharing facilities, is likely to be an HMO.

In addition, under Section 257 of the Act, buildings converted into self continued flats, but not in accordance with the 1991 Building Regulations, are also considered to be HMOs, regardless of whether facilities are shared or not. Purpose built blocks of flats, or any block of flats where less than one third are tenanted, are excluded from the definition of HMO.

All HMOs are subject to requirements under the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006, and the Housing Health and Safety Rating System. You can use the links below to see these Statutory Instruments on the Office of Public Sector Information website:

Does my HMO require a Licence?

Not all HMOs require a Licence, but you will need to apply for an HMO Licence if you control a property falling within the scope of one or more of the following schemes. Failure to licence a property may result in a fine of up to £20,000. See below for more information on the types of licence:

Mandatory HMO Licensing - all HMOs comprising three or more storeys which have five or more occupants forming two or more households, require a licence. Please contact us if you own, operate, control or let such property and have not already requested a licence application pack.

Discretionary ‘Additional’ HMO Licensing – a local authority can choose to impose an Additional Licensing scheme on certain categories of HMO, if its feels that failures in management or antisocial behaviour issues need to be addressed. Derby City Council has no current proposals to adopt such a scheme.

Discretionary ‘Selective’ Licensing – a local authority can choose to licence any private rented property - whether an HMO or not - if it identified specific problems of low demand or anti-social behaviour. Derby City Council has no current proposals to adopt such a scheme.

What Happened to HMO Registration?

Mandatory HMO Licensing has now replaced the previous HMO Registration Scheme adopted in Derby in 1999. HMOs Registered prior to 6 April 2006 have been automatically passported in to HMO Licensing for the remainder of their original Registration period with the conditions of Registration, if they are licensable under section 254 as detailed above. When the HMO's registration period expires, an application for Mandatory Licensing must be made.

HMOs Registered prior to 6 April 2006 now falling outside the new Mandatory licensing definition will remain subject to their Registration conditions until the expiry date detailed on the registration document.

For more information on property licences visit the Resident Landlord's Association web page Landlords: Do you need a property licence? External web link


Contact us

For more information on our services, or for advice about housing standards, please contact us - details below, or use the form at the bottom of this page:

Housing Standards Team,
Housing and Advice Services,
PO Box 6323,
Derby,
DE1 2WW

Telephone: 01332 255160
Minicom: 01332 255316
Email: Housing.Standards@derby.gov.uk

Contact us

Please provide as much information as possible.
*
*
*
*
* required fields


Data Protection: This form is not secure. Please don't include any confidential or sensitive information on it. We will treat any other personal information you provide in confidence and under the Data Protection Act 1998. We will hold it and only use it for a legal reason or for the purpose it is given. We will only share information when we have your consent or we need to ask another department or partner to respond to a specific comment or request you have made.

We will keep a record of the sender's Internet Protocol address (which is unique to the sender's computer), the date we received the form, and the content for back-up and archive purposes. We will also use this record to identify senders of any malicious content under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. We will keep this record for a maximum of three months.
#

Terms and Conditions | Privacy Statement

This page has not loaded correctly. Please click refresh on your browser.