Selective licensing: Minimum bedroom size?

evict and sell

Coventry Council told me these are national minimum sizes by law, but a council can set it's own minimum. I'm getting sick of them making stuff up as they go along. Bottom line is they are 'trained' housing officers, not lawyers!

Reply to the comment left by Peter Andrew at 11/01/2024 - 12:23
So she is incorrect saying it is a Housing Act requirement.

It is a local authority attempt to reduce the pool of available rental properties, which will increase demand and market rent, hence enabling the local authority to deem all landlords evil.

I wonder what Shelter's opinion is:-)

Lots of comments about HMOs. I don’t know why?

Minimum room sizes depend on a number of factors sizes. I found paragraph 2.2 of Tamworth Council’s policy informative…
https://www.tamworth.gov.uk/sites/default/files/housing_docs/hmo_standards.doc

Here we have a problem of government intervening in contract law.
If the tenant is compos mentis why does the government of any level need to be involved???

Perhaps the tenant is happy with the tradeoff of cost and size. So how is the official actually helping anybody?

Its a nonsense, not only is is making everyone's lives worse off, but its a waste, the official could be hunting down fly tippers or real trouble makers, not people providing a service!!

so how many people are actually on the flat AST - one or two? (not clear from OP)

As an HMO landlord, I can say you are correct in your reading of HA2004. Min size for anyone over the age of 10 is 6.5m2, and even with new-build a single bedroom is still allowed to be as small as 7.5m2. You might find these links useful: 1st on overcrowding..
https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/repairs/check_if_your_home_is_overcrowded_by_law . 2nd on new-build space standards: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-housing-standards-nationally-described-space-standard/technical-housing-standards-nationally-described-space-standard . So, the bedroom size per se is not an issue at all, but if the whole flat is less than 39m2, you wouldn't get planning permission to do that conversion now, but it is still likely to be lawful through established use.

These dimensions reduce most of the UK's 1930s semi detached houses into 2 bed properties. Granted that their greater appeal these days in the rental market is for home-workers needing a private home office but all the same, these houses were built as 3 bed family homes and I'm pretty sure that's mostly how our nation's home owners still use them.

I bought a traditional 3-bed semi in 2013. Like most of them all over the UK it's made up of 2 x double bedrooms & a box room (still perfectly suitable for a cot, one young child or even two sleeping on bunk beds). But according to whom?

I enlarged this box room by adding a full height & width 'wardrobe' above the stairwell. The floor space which doesn't need a wardrobe is 7.3ft x 6ft (43.8 square feet) but apparently this isn't a bedroom now, according to rented sleeping space requirements.

In the 'old days' a room was adjusted fit to housing benefit applicants' needs, no matter what the previous designation of that room was. It made bedrooms out of old Victorian dining rooms: the dining room could be classed as a bedroom as long as it had a window and a door that could close on a room which contained a single bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers.

The single room in the 3-bed semi I bought takes a full width (30inch) single bed (6.4' foot) in length. On the floor space there is a free-standing chest of drawers & a bedside cabinet. Clothes hanging + additional storage above & below is perfectly adequate for one person via the closet built above the stairwell. In addition, there is storage space beneath the bed.

The UK has 1930s houses nationwide, all over the map. There must be multiple thousands of rooms exactly like this (with or without the bulk head storage addition) used across the entirety of the UK in private homes. Babies, tots, first child, two children, teenagers happy to have their first non-shared room as well as weekday lodgers.

It's a private sleeping space if it's self contained, the door can be shut and there's a window for natural light. My tenant family use it that way and are more than happy!

So, with all the housing needs there are today, and applying the same logic in today's times..... If these box rooms AREN'T considered to be bedrooms by UK renting officialdom, what are the huge majority of the British home-owning families sleeping in these days???

Needless to say when EPC C regulations are forced on us the room sizes will decrease.

We need to keep in mind that the legal room size limit is the minimum. Local Authorities may introduce more stringent requirements, seen regularly in additional licensing schemes. However, if this is the case, there is no reason why you shouldn't make a challenge and ask the LA to justify their position. If you don't like their answer, then escalate it through the tribunal process.