Selective licensing – should I appeal the number of occupants restriction?

Just ridiculous - total lack of common sense here.
Not sure how you deal with councils - they haven’t replied to queries raised 10 months ago , previously queries the response was 18 months !
Wish you luck in this - my sense would be to query, and open the discussion.

“surely if a couple and a single were sharing (ie 3 people in 2 households), that is not making an HMO ? “.
Yes it would clearly be an HMO which is defined as three or more people comprising two or more households. Basically your selective licence is preventing you setting up an HMO.

Hello Mark

Please understand that 3 persons from 2 households absolutely is an HMO and has been so defined since the Housing Act 2004

You don’t say which London Borough this is but most of them have “Additional Licensing” for 3 and 4 person HMOs and so your selective licence would be the WRONG licence and they could fine you up to £30,000 for having the wrong type of licence.

If you want to change your property to an HMO it will need to comply with all aspects of the Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006 as well as, by the looks of it, an Additional HMO licence.

For completeness, in areas where the council has selective licensing but does not have an Additional HMO Licencijg scheme then 3 and 4 person HMOs would require a selective licence.

If confused, do get advice from a professional firm like Landlord Licensing & Defence - the fines are excruciating if you get it wrong

Which borough? Some, for example, Hackney's selective licencing has expired. As best as I can understand, they are allowed to do selective & additional for 5 years then need to try to renew.

Reply to the comment left by Darren Peters at 29/08/2024 - 10:37
If each household in the HMO has an AST with named tenants, what happens when single tenants decide to have someone living with them, but not named in the AST?

As said, if you wanted more than 2 persons in 2 households, you applied for the wrong licence. Selective Licensing is for everything short of HMO criteria.

If you do have more than 2 tenants and your property then becomes a HMO please be aware of all the rules and regs that apply.
Bedroom sizes, kitchen facilities, fire safety and on and on.
Good luck

Thanks for the comments, and clarification. The reason i had applied for the selective licence is that a long standing single family unit were renting the place when i put in the application 8 months ago, they happen to have handed their notice in around now, so i have the scenario of a different tenant make up. So a supplentary: given 2 people in two households, what is the status of my duties to monitor their private lives, ie if one of these two single people developed
a relationship during their tenancy, and have a partner staying over but not on the tenancy agreement, i am obliged to end their tenancy? Is there a definition of how a landlord can be held to knowing a third person is resident, and not just occasionally present? The implication is that i would potentially need to be very invasive to my tenants private affairs to avoid exposure to legal action

Reply to the comment left by NewYorkie at 29/08/2024 - 11:31
Have breached the HMO regulation?
Overcrowding regulations?

Reply to the comment left by Jose at 29/08/2024 - 12:15
Staying over likely/usually equals not more than 2 weeks at a time ie a holiday OR not more than 3 nights per week.