HMO licence checkerinstant results in your browser

A House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) is, in plain terms, a property where three or more tenants who are not all one family live together and share a kitchen, bathroom or toilet. That definition comes from the Housing Act 2004. The licensing question sits on top of it: being an HMO does not automatically mean you need a licence, and not being an HMO does not automatically mean you are free of licensing. There are three separate regimes — mandatory, additional and selective — and this checker tells you which one your property is most likely to fall into.

Mandatory HMO licensing is the national rule and the one with no discretion. Any HMO occupied by five or more people forming two or more separate households, sharing amenities, must be licensed by the local authority — anywhere in England. Until 1 October 2018 there was also a "three or more storeys" condition; that was removed, so a five-person shared house on a single floor now needs a licence just as a three-storey one does. If your inputs hit five occupants, two-plus households and shared facilities, the answer is unambiguous: you need a mandatory licence before you let.

Additional licensing is where it gets local. A council can designate part or all of its area so that smaller HMOs — typically three or four occupants in two or more households — also require a licence. These schemes are common in university cities and areas with dense shared housing, but they are decided council by council and run for fixed periods (usually five years) before renewal. A three-person house-share that needs no licence in one borough may need one across the boundary. The only authoritative source is the local authority for the specific postcode, which is why this tool flags "check your council" rather than guessing.

Selective licensing is broader still and not about HMOs at all. It lets a council require a licence for every privately rented property in a designated area, including an ordinary single-family let. Councils use it to tackle low housing demand, anti-social behaviour or poor property conditions. So a landlord with a standard one-household tenancy can still need a licence if the property sits inside a selective licensing zone. If your inputs show a single household, the checker reminds you to confirm there is no selective scheme covering the address.

The stakes for getting this wrong are high and have grown. Operating a licensable HMO without a licence is a criminal offence that can be dealt with by an unlimited fine or a civil penalty of up to £30,000. Tenants (and the council on Housing Benefit/Universal Credit cases) can apply for a Rent Repayment Order reclaiming up to 12 months of rent. And — critically for landlords — you cannot serve a valid Section 8 possession notice while the property should be licensed but is not. An unlicensed HMO is therefore not just a fine risk; it strips you of the ability to regain possession.

Licensing also brings conditions, not just a certificate. A mandatory HMO licence carries minimum room sizes (6.51 m² for one adult, 10.22 m² for two), limits on occupancy, requirements for adequate kitchen and bathroom provision, mandatory gas safety certificates supplied annually to the council, and electrical safety declarations. Planning rules can bite too: converting a family home (use class C3) to a small HMO (C4) is permitted development in most areas, but an Article 4 Direction can remove that right and require full planning permission. Treat the licence as the start of an ongoing compliance obligation, not a one-off form.