Setting up an HMO from scratch by @HMOlandlady

I don't know what it's like in other peoples' part of the world but from where I'm standing it seems to me that housing standards are having a funny turn. With the extra demand for shared property created by the recent changes in legislation for those up to thirtyfive, you would think that someone would have told them that it might be a good idea to enable landlords to provide more shared accommodation rather than attempting to reduce the amount of HMO space available. Throughout Devon the variation in room sizes accepted as appropriate for sharers ranges by about 40%, so that what is an excellent shared space in one part of the County is frowned upon in another. I have also heard that landlords are being asked to carry our work on shared rooms in HMOs which cannot be supported by legislation let alone common sense. Now, don't get me wrong. I want the cowboys who exploit tenants out of the game as fast as anyone else, but it seems to me that once a landlord comes clean and presents his property for certification, all manner of strange requirements seem to creep out of the housing standards woodwork. Has anyone else found similar starange things happening and is there any advice out there to prevent what seems to be off the wall requirements from someones wild imagination preventing good landlords from trying to meet the housing crisis?

My standard response now to any such strange request is "please can you point me to the legislation which necessitates me to do what you are asking"

this is exactly what i fear will be happening in LB Newham very soon with compulsory blanket licensing. the licence fee is just the starter.

If managing an HMO for someone else, as opposed to your own where with no agent you must have the licence in your name, just make sure the licence is in the name of the landlord

Cannot really pin-point what the nub of this article exactly is.
However it's good to see some entries in the commentary verifying the fact that
all council workers get sent on an induction course which involves them being hypnotised
into believing they own all the people in all the houses in all the streets
within their county. Ironically schools within a county have compulsory
bullying policies - which appear to be perfectly counter-balanced by the fine
art of bullying that councils seem to feel justified in exacting on general
members of the public within the county/city including landlords that operate within it's boundaries and dare to rent out 'their' houses.
"please can you point me to the legislation which necessitates me to do what you are asking"
"or I will poke you in the eye" If only B.Fawlty were an HMO landlord.

I had a bad experience in Oxford eight years ago which put me off renting out HMOs in that city ever again: my house was a large two-storey, 4-bed Victorian terrace with two reception rooms and a big kitchen-diner-utility-bathroom extension. I lived in one room and rented out 4 others, and we all shared one living room, the kitchen and two proper bathrooms.

I was required to license the property as an HMO and received a visit from Environmental Health. Imagine my surprise when I was told that I must do the following: replace the battery smoke detectors with wired-in ones and a heat detector in the kitchen, replace all the solid-wood Victorian doors with lockable fire doors with self-closers and intumescent strips, install illuminated fire escape signs, install fire-proofing material on the wall between the kitchen and understairs cupboard and underneath every step on the staircase, right down to the bottom, and build a bike store and bin store in the front garden. He also wanted me to install sinks in every bedroom until I protested and said where was the legislation saying this must be done; he also relented on replacing all the doors except the kitchen one and on the ghastly illuminated fire escape signs.

He appeared to regard an HMO from a health and safety perspective as equivalent to self-contained bedsits, each with their own cooking and bathing facilities, or to a hotel. He just couldn't get his head around the notion that houseshare tenants could cooperate to share a kitchen, respect a no-smoking policy, have a cleaning rota, share meals and other social activities like going to a movie or supermarket together, and be in most respects little different from a family with two parents and three grown-up children who were working and still living at home.

I could not agree more with your sentiments TonyA. I honestly think that we should mount a campaign against the attitude of Councils to landlords as I think it has reached unacceptable, toxic levels. I remember when no one would talk to the Inland Revenue years ago as they were so officious - well a miracle occured there and now they could not be more helpful - the same is needed of Environmental Health and Councils.
I have just had an Improvement Notice withdrawn by my local Council (what they were doing issuing it in the first place is another matter - not adhering to the Enforcement Concordat that's for sure) and I am only disappointed that I did not tackle the issue in Court rather than through the RPT, as they have got off lightly.
Fire regulations were first considered years ago before there were non-smoking policies, gas safety certificates, sophisticated alarm systems and heat detectors. Statistics now show that HMO properties are far safer than single occupancy homes (and yet they are thinking of insisting on sprinkler systems in wales god forbid - for which the increased effectiveness is zilch apparently). There is a shortage of housing yet students no longer share rooms ( as I did) and live in ludicrous locked boxes with fire doors slamming shut in every direction, but which are propped open with wedges - which sell out within minutes at the local supermarket when the term begins. Five bed homes are totally discouraged by legislation and licensing and all these ridiculous expectations are pushing landlords towards converting houses into flats for no more than two households, surprise, surprise
My lovely property had mains connected smoke alarms everywhere, heat detectors, fire blankets, extingushers and even emergency lighting - all this in a non-licensable 2 story house for four - though there are now five sharing very happily. it had three downstairs exits (though they insisted that there was only one escape route) and two upstairs fire escape windows - surely enough is enough.
It was deemed to be a house of bedsits yet like your place, the tenants did not see it like that nor did any of us want a house like that. Locks on doors (required by many Insurance companies) and separate tenancy agreements (despite moving in within weeks of one another) apparently made this simple to categorise.
I now have a joint tenancy agreement but would not dream of asking anyone to fund a tenant who has left - I have always operated that way, whether I am entitled to or not - it is just not fair to the tenants - we just quickly get a replacement and I cover any shortfall, if there is one. Nothing has changed in the house - except that I had to cover the keyholes with escutcheons - yes that's right - a huge smoke hazard, keyholes - oh and to glue up some cracks in the Victorian pine doors.
Well I've won and kept my Victorian doors but issuing a joint agreement is a pain and totally unnecessary - people can come and go but the running of the house has remained the same for years. They know the set-up that they are entering - one of co-operation and harmony and that is why there is always a queue a mile long to live there. If normal houses were allowed to be normal shared houses then the housing crisis would virtually disappear overnight.
I was a student for far too long, but I lived in some lovely places with young professionals, because there were always five of us and we just operated as a single household - which is what most people want to do.
Licensed houses can still be low risk and that should be the emphasis, not this cover-your-back attitude of H & S which has just gone mad (in my view). Sorry to rant. I wish I could chat to Blast productions - they would have a serial out of it rather than one documentary - but probably no viewers!

Gilly, your experience is uncannily similar to mine: I forgot I had to cover my keyholes too! Can you point us to the evidence you refer to, that HMOs are safer than single-family occupation? Because EHOs and the wider anti-HMO community are convinced by "fire statistics" that HMOs are basically death-traps and need to be licensed and regulated like bedsits, hotels and care homes. There is also much confusion caused by a failure to distinguish between "This Life"-style houseshares like the ones you and I lived in for many years, with unlocked bedrooms and shared domestic bathrooms and kitchens, and bedsits, which are essentially self-contained studio flats with their own cooking and washing facilities.

I can see why there's concern over bedsits, with multiple potential fire locations within the same building, but I find it very difficult to understand why there is so much hostility to houseshares of 4/5 students or young working people. What the authorities and busybody councillors who are hostile by political persuasion to the entire PRS should be doing, instead of fussing about escutcheons and seeking to license and inspect every landlord in their boroughs, is focusing on the bad landlords who cram 12 immigrants and benefit claimants into a 3-bedroom house (and the shed), never get the boiler checked, rarely repair anything, use ancient furnishings etc etc. As Ben Reeve-Lewis's column on this website shows, such work is never easy, but demonising the entire HMO sector and licensing everyone is just a gigantic distraction. What's really needed is a willingness in councils and courts to use their existing powers and resource departments like Ben's properly, funded by serious fines and confiscations on the landlords - and the subletters of council houses and housing association properties - who flout the safety laws and who are usually heavily involved in benefit fraud and maybe illegal immigration too.

>Next time….. photos of the finished rooms, the weird and wonderful people who responded to the ad and the man from Blast Productions sticking a camera in everyone’s face in a bid to understand HMO living for a forthcoming BBC documentary.

Interesting, and I'm sure you'll be great, but perhaps illustrates how narrow the base is TV programmes work from.

I have temporarily taken on the property management of 4 HMOs in Eastbourne and am looking for a really good, reliable property management agency. Do you know of any in the area? Thanks for your help.