The short answer
Yes. The thing to look for is software that treats the house as one property with rooms inside it, each room carrying its own tenancy. Two shortcuts look tempting and both go wrong: entering every room as its own property, which copies the gas safety record and the electrical report five or six times, and entering the whole house as one tenancy, which hides who owes what. LetCompliance does it the first way, the one that matches how an HMO is actually let.
Why it matters
Picture a six-room house. One tenant is two weeks behind, another moved out mid-month and the room is empty, a third pays weekly because that is how their wages come in, and the newest started on the 19th rather than the 1st. A single total for the house says the rent is a bit short. A room-by-room view says exactly who owes how much since when, which room is earning nothing, and when each room’s tenancy started. That is also the view you need if a room’s arrears ever lead to a notice, because the notice is served on that tenant, for that tenancy.
How to track room rents, whatever you use
- Keep one record for the building: the gas safety record, electrical report, EPC, HMO licence, insurance and mortgage
- Keep one record per room: its label, floor area, whether bills are included and its asking rent
- Keep one tenancy per tenant: start date, rent, how often it is paid, rent day and deposit
- Raise a charge for each rent period and match each payment to it, so arrears are worked out rather than guessed
- Ask each tenant to put their room number in the payment reference
- Record empty rooms as empty, so a void is visible as lost rent rather than a missing row
Your options, compared
- A spreadsheet. Free, and workable for a small house of monthly payers. It strains with weekly rents, a different rent day per room and tenants changing mid-month, and it never tells you who is late.
- A letting agent. Some agents manage HMOs, for a percentage of each room’s rent. Named agents’ published rates are on LetCompliance’s letting agent fees page.
- Software priced by unit or tenancy. Some products count each room’s tenancy towards the plan limit, so the price climbs with the rooms. Check how any product you consider counts before you sign up; LetCompliance’s page comparing it with August for HMOs sets out one example with the date it was checked.
- Software priced by property. In LetCompliance the house is one property whatever the number of rooms, so the plan follows the number of houses.
How it works in LetCompliance
Set the property type to HMO and say how many rooms there are; the rooms are created for you. Adding more later only ever adds, and a room that has had a tenant is never removed by changing the count. Each room carries its own rent, tenant, arrears, a bills-included flag and its floor area.
Each room’s tenancy has its own rent frequency, weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly or monthly, and its own rent day. Charges are raised on that day for that tenancy, so the rent page shows what is due, paid and owed room by room across every house you have.
- Importing a house: in a spreadsheet saved as CSV, rows with a room column, or an address starting “Room 5,”, become rooms of one property rather than separate properties
- Empty rooms: counted as rooms, so a house with one empty room is not reported as fully let
- Room sizes: each room’s floor area is checked against the minimum sizes in the mandatory HMO licence conditions
- Collecting: each tenant can be asked to pay by Direct Debit and confirms their own mandate, into your own Stripe account. Stripe charges 1% of each Direct Debit payment with a 20p minimum and a £4 cap, and £5 for a disputed payment.
- Arrears: worked out per tenancy, including whether the Ground 8 threshold is met: three months’ rent on a monthly tenancy, 13 weeks on a weekly or fortnightly one
- The tenant’s view: each tenant gets their own portal link showing their own balance, payments and receipts, not the house’s
- The paperwork: the tenancy agreement, deposit and notices are per room’s tenancy; the certificates and licence are held once, at the building
The price follows the number of houses, not rooms: Single at £7.99 a month for one property, Solo at £14.99 for up to 3, Portfolio at £19 for up to 10, Portfolio Plus at £29 for up to 20 and Professional at £49 for any number. A single HMO fits on Single, whatever its number of rooms.
The law, where it touches this
- GOV.UK, “House in multiple occupation licence” (read 20 October 2026): a property is an HMO when at least 3 people who are not from 1 household rent it and share facilities such as a bathroom or kitchen. A licence is needed for a large HMO in England, one rented to 5 or more people forming more than 1 household; a smaller HMO may need one depending on the area. A licence lasts at most 5 years.
- Housing Act 2004, Schedule 4, paragraph 1A (legislation.gov.uk, read 20 October 2026): in a licensed HMO in England, a room slept in by one person over 10 must be at least 6.51 square metres, by two people over 10 at least 10.22, by one child under 10 at least 4.64, and a room under 4.64 square metres must not be used for sleeping.
Common mistakes
- Turning weekly rent into a monthly figure by multiplying by four. A year has 52 weeks, so the monthly equivalent is the weekly rent times 52, divided by 12.
- Entering each room as its own property, then renewing the same gas safety record in six places.
- One tenancy for the whole house when each tenant signed for their own room. The arrears and the notice then point at the wrong person.
- Payments with no room reference, matched by guesswork at the month end.
- Leaving an empty room out of the records, so the void never shows.
Is there free HMO software?
LetCompliance’s free plan keeps one property, and a whole HMO counts as one, with each room’s monthly rent tracked on its own tenancy. Weekly rent, the rent page across every room and Direct Debit start at Single, £7.99 a month for the whole house.
How do I collect rent from HMO tenants online?
Either a standing order from each tenant with their room in the reference, or Direct Debit, where each tenant confirms their own mandate and each payment posts against their own tenancy.
Can tenants on different rent days live in the same HMO?
Yes. Each tenancy has its own rent day and frequency, so a weekly payer and a monthly payer sit side by side in the same house.
Does my HMO need a licence?
A large HMO does everywhere in England, and many councils license smaller ones too. LetCompliance has a free licence checker, and the licence and its expiry can be tracked with reminders.
The honest limits
- Four-weekly rent gets no Ground 8 calculation; the screen says to ask an adviser.
- Utility bills are not split between tenants. A bills-included room is flagged, and the rent is one figure.
- Each tenant agrees their own Direct Debit mandate; nobody can be signed up on their behalf.
- Adverts for empty rooms go on LetCompliance’s own listings or a link you share, with the text and photos ready to copy; there is no Rightmove or Zoopla feed.
