Confusion after Coalition back-tracks on HMOs

News Category: Industry News

Landlords and agents in different parts of the country will face different regulations about whether planning permission will have to be sought to change a one-household property into a shared one.

Yesterday, new Regulations were introduced by housing minister Grant Shapps.

In a heavily spun statement, he said that “landlords and councils will no longer be faced with bureaucracy aimed at micro-managing rented housing”.

In fact, councils where there are high concentrations of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) will still be able to demand planning applications for a change of use when a single household home is converted into a small HMO shared by between two and six people.

Other councils will be able to decide that HMOs are not a problem and that planning permission will not be needed.

Meanwhile, a new planning class has been maintained for these smaller size HMOs – despite the Tories pledging before the election to get rid of this measure, which swas rushed through by Labour in April.

One expert, Susan Drakeford, a licensed conveyancer at law firm Adams & Remers in Sussex, said: “We could see a situation where the owners of one side of a street have to apply for planning permission for a HMO and owners on the other side of the street don’t, if they fall on the boundary of a local authority area.”

Since Labour’s changes in April, all landlords have had to submit a planning application if they change the use of a property from a single-household home to an HMO.

While this blanket requirement has now been dropped, it is already known that a number of councils – Canterbury, for example – are actively drawing up plans to crack down on the creation of new HMOs.

Yesterday, Shapps said: “Councils understand their local area best, and they don’t need burdensome rules that assume housing issues in every town, village and hamlet are exactly the same. I am also committed to safeguard the supply of rented housing: shared homes are vital for people who want to live and work in towns and cities, and are important to the economy.

“That’s why I’m giving councils greater flexibility to manage shared homes in their local area. Where there are local issues with shared homes, councils will have all the tools they need to deal with the problem, but they will avoid getting bogged down in pointless applications, and landlords won’t be put off renting shared homes where they are needed.”

While some landlords appear happy with the outcome – the National Landlords Association has welcomed it – others are not.

The Residential Landlords Association campaigned hard against the retention of the new Planning Class 4, saying that it was not the creation of small HMOs which led to problems with neighbours, but the creation of large HMOs – for which planning permission is needed anyway.

The RLA has also pointed out that where councils demand planning permission for a change of use to an HMO, landlords could have to make repeated applications if they alternately let a property to a family and groups of sharers, such as nurses or young professionals.


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