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Limits on Local Authorities’ powers to
introduce additional HMO Licenses

from "UK Landlord" magazine, March 2007
by Elizabeth Brogan, NLA Senior Policy Officer

The Department for Communities and Local Government has recently published new guidance intended for local authorities on how they should be approaching the use of additional HMO licensing schemes and selective licensing schemes. The publication provides useful information for landlords who are considering challenging local authorities' attempts to introduce licensing for their properties.

The guidance makes explicitly clear to local authorities that landlords can only take steps to deal with anti-social behaviour which takes place within the enclosed area or 'curtilage' of the property. NLA welcomes this clarity. We also welcome the clarification in the guidance that where a problem is associated with a single property or HMO (or a small number of them), the local authority should use Interim Management Orders to take over the management of those properties rather than forcing all local landlords to comply with an additional or selective licensing scheme.

Finally, the guidance states that although the Act gives the Government the power to grant general approvals to specific local authorities, it has chosen not to do so yet. This means that ALL proposals from local authorities to introduce additional or selective licensing will have to be put forward to Government for approval and can therefore be modified or turned down. This news is very welcome to us as it provides a brake on the ambitions of certain local authorities.

Local authorities have to consult locally before making a designation for additional or selective licensing. If you are faced with a proposal from a local authority to introduce a licensing scheme that will cover your properties we recommend that you look at the guidance to make sure that the local authority is following the correct steps and that their arguments stand up to the points raised in the guidance.

Copies of the guidance are available online.

Additional licensing enables a local authority to extend HMO licensing in a designated area to a wider variety of HMOs than those on 3 storeys with 5 occupants.

Selective licensing is a tool available to local authorities in areas of low housing demand or those with a significant anti-social behaviour problem to require all private rented properties in the designated area to be licensed.

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