Selective licensing legislation

This guidance applies to designation made under the General Approval as well as those which require confirmation by the Secretary of State. With effect from 1 April, a new General Approval will come into force. Additional criteria for making a scheme are also now in force.

A designation may be made to combat problems in an area experiencing poor property conditions, an influx of migration, a high level of deprivation or high levels of crime. Book your coronavirus vaccination and booster dose on the NHS website. To help us improve GOV. It will take only 2 minutes to fill in. Cookies on GOV. UK We use some essential cookies to make this website work.

No selective Licences. The deadline was looming and he was unable to take action. We negotiated an extension of the deadline because of his illness and the fact that he had now appointed us to organise and This is highly significant because it was just 8 hours before new HMO licensing deadline of 1st October If an HMO application was not properly lodged by that deadline, significant Civil Penalty fines could apply.

While the team was doing a HMO licence application on another property for this Landlord, he suddenly had the realisation that a house he was Putney — An Unexpected Solution A Landlord had purchased a property and wanted to know how to turn it into a HMO and operate it legally as serviced accommodation. It was an ex-council terraced property. Turning it into a HMO had not been an issue, however the quality of works which had been undertaken to do so was incredibly bad and would not pass regulations under any circumstances.

This owner had not been paying proper West London Company Let The client was renting the residential property to a Company who help vulnerable young adults and was trying to ascertain if the property needed a licence. His tenant was a corporate company which was providing an immigrant orientation service and also providing their living accommodation. On contacting us he had attempted to connect with the local Council a number of times to no response.

Our client had found problems some days ago with the units not working properly on test and had the manufacturer sent some replacements via the post, reassuring the client that although the faulty ones were Kedleston Road Handled negotiations for the Client, a Tenant Company where the Letting Agent as they so often do was wrongly insistent on using an Assured Shorthold Tenancy, which was the incorrect agreement and not fit for purpose.

One ought to be able to expect better from Letting Agents! Protracted negotiations, as we discovered as Solihull HMO The property owner had owned the property for 20 years or so and two years previously had rented it to a corporation that had put 5 occupants into the property. From the 1st October , all properties with 5 occupants, not all related, were required to have a Mandatory HMO House in Multiple Occupation Licence applied for by that date. The corporation had agreed that it would carry out the Kingston Prohibition Order Defending a Prohibition Notice for both the Owner and the Subletting Landlord and replacing the subletting Landlord with a more suitable fit and proper Landlord in order to have the prohibition order withdrawn The owner is an elderly man and his daughter was dealing with the property and had let it to a subletting Company who was the Subletting Rent to Rent Landlord.

The Owner and Subletting Brentford Developer A property developer had decided to change a three-bed semi-detached house into a 6 bedroom all en-suite HMO. Initially we inspected the property at purchase and contributed to best practice and design aspects to comply with planning use under permitted development and HMO Licensing.

As an expense saver and ongoing economy we suggested the removal of gas at the property and use of Newark and Sherwood Prepared contractual agreement for the lease of residential property to be used for serviced accommodation. Defending landlord against Planning Contravention Notice issued by the Council for alleged change of use from C3 to Sui Generis without permission. Defended landlord against council allegation that Building Regulations had been contravened.

Defended landlord against Environmental Health Breaches of planning, overcrowding and licensing: all sorted with no casualties! Selective licensing for privately rented housing is available if local authorities believe it would reduce or eliminate the above housing problems.

Local authorities can designate an area for selective licensing without the Secretary of State's approval if they consulted everyone affected for a minimum of 10 weeks. When deciding if an area is suffering from low demand, a local authority must take into account:. When operating an SLS, local authorities must also assess landlords for:.

Selective licensing only applies in designated areas. Where it applies, all privately rented accommodation in that area has to be licensed by the local authority. Such accommodation need not be licensed if the:. While these may vary amongst local authorities, they generally include:.

If you find the whole licensing process a bit daunting and are based in the London area, we can help you. We offer a fixed price licence application handling service and you can find more information here. We have limited capacity and specialise in more complex cases. Several other companies offering a licence application handling service can be found in our Landlord Suppliers Directory here. If you want to learn more about what happens once you submit your application, we have another guide explaining the next part of the process here.

If you still have questions and need expert advice, we can offer a minute telephone consultation, explained here. Following an initial consultation, we may be able to offer more in-depth consultancy support, including the preparation of temporary exemptions, licensing representations and appeals.

We hope you have found our guide to selective licensing useful. It is important to remember this is not legal advice and you may want to refer to our disclaimer below. To keep up to date with all the latest housing regulation news, you can sign up to our free London Property Licensing newsletter here.