Landlord of a House "License" ?
 

I heard on the radio the other day that anyone that rents out a property must have a license to do so - can anyone shed any light on this ?

Many Thanks :)

I believe is applies to HMOs only (bedsits in other words), which means each bedroom must have it's own lock etc, rather than just three friends sharing etc. But I wait to be corrected.


M

http://www.odpm.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1151996

...it's a bureaucratic, expensive nightmare :(

I've rented out houses for years and don't feel I need this legislation directed at me. Our local authority had HMO's to be 5 tenants or more with different contracts, not 3. 3 is a ridiculously low number to be considered a HMO in a house.

What it will mean for me is that I'll only now accept "one household"tenancy, which means one family unit, something I've never wanted to do before. By the looks of what I've read so far, three people on the same contract who arent related willbe classed as three households. In reality this will mean a pooper deal for many individuals and even groups who know each other, wishing to rent a bedsit/property. Just called my local council for an information pack, so it'll be interesting to see how much this will cost. From what I've read already costs of between 400 and a 1000 quid every 3 years to simply register HMO status, then there's fire doors etc and all the rest of the health and safety crap that surely must be bundled in this.

There's obviously bad landlords out there that need dealing with, but this legislation will come down hard on everyone. theres a list of criteria a landlord must now meet.

Shared Houses are not HMOs: if they share a living room then it's not an HMO, even if the tenants aren't related. Essentially, if the tenants rent a room, but have access to common areas (usually just kitchen and bathroom, but may include a utility room) then it's an HMO. If they divide the rent for the whole house between them it's not. That at least is my understanding.

As for this:

First of all, I love the casual attitude to fire doors. Call me old-fashioned, but I've always thought of them as import. A friend who had the HMO he was living in burnt down a few years ago tends to agree with me. In that case the landlord had told the council that the property was empty, so the fire brigade weren't actually looking for anyone in the house as it went up. Yes, bad landlords need to be controlled, but if you're a good landlord then you'll already have done all this.


M

Glad you like my casual attitude to fire doors, but I'm talking about a 3 bed terraced house let to 3 people. If I owned a larger property and had several or more tenants then I'd consider fire doors. In fact I'd have all the safety going if the tenant was willing to pay the premium for it, few are :D. I make sure that the boiler is serviced regular and certificated and my house is as safe, if not safer, than any regular 3 bed terraced house.

And correct me if i'm wrong, but if 3 individual tenants in a house share kitchen and toilet facilities, this is now considered a HMO, where previously my local authority wanted 5 or more tenants sharing said facilities.

so the potential knockon is..

rents going up to cover landlords costs, more renters therefore wanting to buy own house, increase in demand means house prices to continue to rise :/