Additional Licensing of an HMO

A Local Authority may choose to have an area for Additional Licensing. This may be an area within a city or town, or it can the the whole city or town.

Within this area, the Local Authority, can enforce the 2004 Housing Act’s definition, in which any property which is occupied by three or more persons, forming two or more households, or a property converted into flats.

City & County of Swansea, have designated Castle and Uplands Wards as areas for Additional Licensing and therefore a landlord will have to apply to the council for a license to run an HMO, if the criteria is met

You have until 30th June 2009 to apply for the licence, after which the council can, and will prosecute landlords who have not applied.

We have now received confirmation from City & County of Swansea, that ALL HMO’s in Castle and Uplands Wards will need to have a license.

Therefore if you have a property that is occupied by three or more persons forming two or more households OR a property that has been converted into flats, but this property is not to the 1991 Building Regulations, (Section 257 of the Housing Act 2004), then you will also need to apply for a license under the Additional Licensing policy.

Subsection “e” of Section 254 of the 2004 Housing Act makes a refernce to self contained flats as being an HMO, subject to the provision of Section 257, which in effect means that if the converted property has not been converted to 1991 Building Regulation standard, and still does not comply, then by vertue of Sections 254 and 257, this property would need to have a License in order to continue to operate in this manner, if this property was in an area where the provision of Additional Licensing is made, as in Castle and Uplands Wards or Swansea.

However, outside Castle and Uplands Wards are STILL affected by HMO policy and therefore, if a property was to be classed as an HMO due to the above rules, then although it would not need to have a License, the property would still be subject to the Housing Health Safety Rating System of (HHSRS). So ther is no escape for landlords of properties outside the designated areas.

For more information on HMO’s visit the other pages or click on the Blogroll link HMO Support