
541 posts

Hey guys,
I hope you can help. My partner has been renting her one bedroom flat for just over five years. As requested she has just obtained a landlord licence, however, this states the *maximum* number of people she can rent to is one.
Yep, one person, not one couple or something else.
Having lived in the flat with her, and having rented to couples for years it's clearly bonkers. There's space in the bedroom for a double bed, bedside tables, wardrobes etc a nice living area with space for two sofas and a balcony!
She's trying to challenge this but nodoby is replying. We felt surely this is against human rights go say it can only be one person?!
If anyone has any experience here that'd be much appreciated, this is really stressing my partner out (not to mention the ESW1 side of things too)
Cheers!
I hope you can help. My partner has been renting her one bedroom flat for just over five years. As requested she has just obtained a landlord licence, however, this states the *maximum* number of people she can rent to is one.
Yep, one person, not one couple or something else.
Having lived in the flat with her, and having rented to couples for years it's clearly bonkers. There's space in the bedroom for a double bed, bedside tables, wardrobes etc a nice living area with space for two sofas and a balcony!
She's trying to challenge this but nodoby is replying. We felt surely this is against human rights go say it can only be one person?!
If anyone has any experience here that'd be much appreciated, this is really stressing my partner out (not to mention the ESW1 side of things too)
Cheers!
0
Quick links
Essential Money | Who & Where are you? | Work & Benefits | Household and travel | Shopping & Freebies | About MSE | The MoneySavers Arms | Covid-19 & Coronavirus Support
Replies
The process is usually that the Council offer a draft license and you have 14 days to object to any conditions. Was this not done?
It's selective licencing I believe
Objection was made very shortly after the licence was emailed, but no response yet, just trying to understand why they would have chosen that.
Its pretty odd, when we lived there every flat had either a couple or a family of a couple and a baby or toddler
These schemes are designed to "raise standards" and in some cases that means the bar is higher that what is reasonably acceptable by owner occupiers. The Council do not consider affordability or housing shortage as factors in this.
Suggest she chases the Licensing team to find out what the current position is. Ultimately she can appeal to First Tier Tribunal if she thinks the condition is unfair but that will probably not be successful if the room is undersize vs the policy and there are no other mitigating factors (extra built in storage for example).
https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/convention_eng.pdf
The irony being if she manages to sell it then I guess whoever buys it can live their with whoever they want! But I guess that makes sense as it's your choice if you own the property