Is your shared house an HMO? Licensing, standards and what it means for you

The definition

A house in multiple occupation, in the words of the GOV.UK guidance, is a property where at least three tenants live, forming more than one household, and share a toilet, bathroom or kitchen with other tenants. A household is one person, or members of one family living together; three friends renting a house are three households, while a couple and their child are one.

The definition comes from the Housing Act 2004 and covers the ordinary shared house, the converted building of bedsits, and some buildings converted into self-contained flats where the conversion did not meet building standards. If you and two or more unrelated people share a kitchen, you almost certainly live in an HMO.

When a licence is required

Mandatory licensing applies to large HMOs: those with at least five tenants forming more than one household who share facilities. The landlord applies to the council, and a licence is valid for a maximum of five years. A separate licence is needed for each property.

Councils can go further. Under additional licensing a council can require licences for smaller HMOs in all or part of its area, and under selective licensing it can require licences for every private rented home in a designated area, shared or not. Whether either applies depends entirely on the address, so the council's website is the only reliable check.

What a licence obliges the landlord to do

A licence is not a formality. To get and keep one, the landlord or manager has to satisfy the council on several points.

• The house must be suitable for the number of people living in it, which is where the council sets a maximum occupancy and minimum room sizes.
• The person managing it must be "fit and proper", with no relevant criminal record and no history of breaching landlord law.
• The council must receive an updated gas safety certificate every year, and the landlord must install and maintain smoke alarms and provide electrical safety certificates on request.
• In a large HMO the landlord must also provide fire alarms and extinguishers, and residents must have access to escape routes at all times.

The management regulations apply to every HMO

Licensing is only for larger houses, but the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006 apply to every HMO, licensed or not. They place specific duties on whoever manages the house: to give occupiers the manager's name, address and phone number; to take safety measures including fire precautions; to maintain the water supply and drainage; to keep gas and electricity supplied and safe; to keep the common parts, fixtures and fittings in repair; to keep each unit of living accommodation in a clean condition at the start of a tenancy; and to provide enough bins for the number of residents.

The same regulations place duties on residents too: not to obstruct the manager in carrying out those duties, to allow reasonable access for them, to take care with fire precautions, and to dispose of rubbish properly. They are worth reading once, because they are the closest thing a shared house has to a written description of who owes what to whom.

Council tax in an HMO

Since 1 December 2023, under the Council Tax (Chargeable Dwellings and Liability for Owners) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023, an HMO in England is treated as a single dwelling for council tax and the owner, not the individual residents, is the liable person. Before that change some councils had been banding individual rooms separately and billing tenants directly. If you are being asked to pay council tax personally for a room in an HMO, it is worth checking the position with the council.

Why residents should care

Three practical consequences follow from a house being a licensed HMO. First, the fire precautions, alarms and occupancy limits are conditions of the licence, so a missing extinguisher or a "spare" resident in the box room is a breach the council can act on. Second, if a large HMO is being let without a licence, the tenants may be able to apply to a tribunal for a rent repayment order and recover some of the rent they have paid; the GOV.UK guidance says as much, and the landlord faces an unlimited fine. Third, a licensed house has a named manager with a duty to be contactable, which is the person to go to when something is wrong.

To check, ask the landlord or agent for the licence number, or search the council's public HMO register, which councils are required to keep.

Outside England

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each have their own HMO regimes, with different thresholds and different licensing bodies. In Scotland, for example, licensing applies from three unrelated occupants rather than five. The principles above carry across; the numbers do not, so check the guidance for your nation.