Student landlords could face buying restrictions under new proposals

News Category: Legal

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Student landlords could face restrictions on adding to their property portfolio, as part of government moves to crack down on the "studentification" of UK towns.

Under the proposed reforms, which will be unveiled in a report from the housing and planning minister Caroline Flint, planning laws would be tightened up so that councils could restrict the number of Houses of Multiple Occupancy (HMO) in a given area.

This would be achieved by amending the law so that an HMO is defined as "any dwelling of three or more people from two or more households", the Guardian reports.

As a result, landlords could find that they are barred from buying properties to rent out to undergraduates in certain areas of towns.

The move follows concerns that towns where there are large amounts of students experience severe depopulation over the summer and become ghost towns.

It is also felt that student landlords are buying up too much of the available stock of low cost housing, thus leaving less what for first time buyers.

Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, gave the plan a frosty welcome on the grounds that it the "added bureaucracy will discourage landlords from the HMO market".

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