HMO or House share

Mrs_Arcanum

Watch out for the council declaring a house as an HMO (by their definitions) as this will mean the property owner/landlord is responsible for the Council Tax regardless.

oldestgnome

SteveSilva wrote: »

So to my understanding that means if I was to have two tenants on my standard 3 bed house I would need a HMO licence as each tenant constitutes a household. Does that sound correct? That will not be my home by the way.

This is incorrect.


SteveSilva as you are in England and Wales - A HMO is formed when more than two (ie 3) individuals forming two or more households live in a property sharing at least one facility.

- also it sounds like you are mixing up whether a property is a HMO and whether the property is a HMO that needs a licence.

It says on their website "Additional licensing of HMOs
Hillingdon Council introduced an HMO Additional Licensing Scheme on the 8 March 2010 within 13 wards in the south of the Borough [1Mb], which requires any two storey HMO occupied by five or more tenants, forming two or more households, to be licensed. This scheme will run in conjunction with mandatory licensing and will apply to all HMOs including student and shared houses."

So if you have a three bedroom (which falls within the 13 wards), 2 storey property occupied by upto 4 people you would not need an additional HMO licence only if you have 5 or more.

However you would need to check and maintain the property in reasonable repair and see if there is a requirement for additional safety measures eg fire doors/mains wired smoke detection.

http://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/media/pdf/e/l/fire_safety_2_storey_house.pdf

HTH

red40

oldestgnome wrote: »

A HMO is formed when more than two (ie 3) individuals forming two or more households live in a property sharing at least one facility

Just to clarify that a little further OG, a HMO is formed when two or more individuals forming two or more households live in a property sharing at least one facility

unhealthyman

DVardysShadow wrote: »

As I see it, if N people come together and accept a tenancy on a 'joint and several' basis, you have reasonable grounds to think that they are a household. If people are tenants on individual tenancies, then they are not a household.

The whole idea of a household is potentially a legal minefield, But if they are on individual tenancies rather than joint and several, you cannot go far wrong by not accepting them as a single household. I know there are other legal definitions of household, but if the tenants are joint and several, you do have arguable grounds for considering them to be a household. This is not legal advice, it is pragmatic. Legally, I think it creates more problems than it solves to consider that a joint and several tenant is not a household, but the law has not caught up with my thinking yet, as is often the case.

I agree that it seems utterly stupid. As a close group of 5 friends renting a house together, I don't understand why we would need an additional level of fire protection etc, than a single family unit with 3 small children renting the same property?

Also - looking at the definition of a household, a single household is allowed to include live-in cleaning and caring staff. In which case I'm just hiring all my flatmates on a £1 a year stipend to be my live-in cleaners. Either that or marrying them.

I don't oppose houses being safe and sensible for people to live in, but the arbitrary and confusing rules are deeply annoying.

I'd also mention, that as far as I know no property I have lived in in the last 5 years in London seems to pass the hazard safety test mentioned by the council: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/Privaterenting/Repairsandstandards/DG_189198 Is this just a law/regulation that is widely ignored or have I just happened to live with slack landlords?