The HMO Debate – an admission of defeat.

There are too many issues being confused here

1. HMO any property that is let to more than two unrelated people sharing facilities. This must meet HMO property and management standards
2. HMO licenses for any property where 5 or more unrelated people are sharing facilities and the property is 3 floors or more
3.Article 4 direction (re ARLA comments) Where a local authority has designated an area where properties that are not presently used as HMO cannot be changed without planning consent for the change of use. Or Where a property that may at some time have been used as an HMO has become a single or family tenancy and the landlords wants to go back to an HMO. Even where there are no changes to the building the change of occupation is key
4. Selective licensing where a local authority has designated an area for selective licensing any property (HMO or single occupancy) must be licensed

In my opinion landlords should vote with their feet and not buy in areas where selective licensing or Article 4 Directions are in place. When the local authority run out of accommodation they will see that they have shot themselves in the foot. Moaning won't change anything doing will!

Clearly put Mary, now Google "HMO Definition" and look at 5 websites and see what you get back LOL I honestly didnt expect this when I tried to write the Dummy's Guide to HMOs, nobody seems to agree

Ben I have a love hate relationship with Internet. It is great for certain information but it is also full of misinformation and the problem is deciding which is which. I have a friend who even tells her GP that he is wrong because she has found information on internet!

I don't want to appear arrogant but I was involved at a very high level when the HA 2004 was being worked out because I was a member of the Exective Committee of the National Federation of Residential Landlords (no longer in existance) At that time we were the only voice of the PRS and I spent many hours in discussions at Eland House. I therefore do not rely on information on internet to give me details of the HA 2004.

The Housing Bill originally stated that any property, where 5 or more people sharing facilities OR where 3 or more stories were occupied by sharers, was a to be licensable HMO. We used the ENTEC report (from information gathered between 1984-1997) to show that it was only when the two factors were combined that the property may present a substantial increase in risk in terms of escape from fire. This battle was hard fought but won and this is why I am very clear about what constitutes a licensable HMO.

Where there is disagreement one should refer to the source document, which in this case is the HA 2004, because it was not until this Act that there was a clear legal deifinition of what constituted an HMO. Local authorities had their feet cut from under them following the Sheffield V Barnes case in 1995 where the judge allowed that a group of (I think 9 sharers) who were living "as a family unit" did not constitute and HMO but was thereafter classed as a shared house. From that time no enforcement action could be taken against landlords who let to groups, like students, who shared bills and one tenancy agreement until November 2004 when the new definition was made law.

That's most people's understanding of a licenseable HMO John, apart from ARLA who seem to think it has to be 6 people. After that it all seems to fall apart.

Maybe the best tack is to ask your own local authority what 'THEY' consider are the conditions of an HMO and keep the letter in case they change their minds later on.

Thats brilliant to have a link to the original source and I agree that the main source of reference should be the HA 2004,it really should be that simple, and with that head on I approached the task of writing the definitive guide. And I am not so daft as to rely on internet research alone but I found this did not co-relate to the views of EHOs or the experiences of landlords around the country, the problem, as usual, is in practice. Why are so many landlords asking the same basic questions and getting so many different answers from their councils?

I wrote my original article based on the legislation and guidance on government websites and then found contradictory information on a variety of council websites and with conversations with EHOs in 2 different boroughs. I decided not to send the article in because although my aim was to clarify and simplify I felt, given what different councils were saying to their landlords, I would just be confusing matters even further.

Most people agree on the 5 people/3 storey rule for mandatory licensing (apart from ARLA) but beyond that interpretations vary, the point about what constituites a 'Storey' if it is an annexe, as I wrote about above is a case in point.

I've been training housing law since 1998 and I have never seen this, where there is on the one level a clearly defined law but in practice a variety of ways of interpreting them on the ground, unless you count homelessness investigation regulations where there is, built in, a scope for individual officer interpretation within certain guidelines. It shouldnt be that way for HMOs and yet it is the common complaint of landlords up and down the land.

I think the debate has moved on in the last few days from the definitions of an HMO to why different councils deal with them in different ways. An HMO lanldord, dilligent in their research, gets confused because their council contradicts the laws.

Let’s step back for a minute…

A landlord has a duty of care, including escape from fire etc. I don’t run a HMO myself, however the concept of paying a small account of money every 5 years so that I have proof I am keeping to my duty of care does not see like a bad deal to me.

The duty of care does not go away just because a property is just outside of the rules for having to be licenced as a HMO. (Needing planning permission to create an HMO in some area is a different matter altogether.)

What concerns me a lot more is that the fire regulations for HMOs don’t encourage sprinkler systems to be fitted, but do require much more expansive and often not effective “fire proving”. Sprinkler systems are easy to maintain and check. However “fire proving” depends on every trade person that every works on a property doing a great job of making good (including behind fittings), this is a lot harder to check! “Fire proving” also depends on no doors being propped open, and no one every making a whole in a wall to share a network or TV connection.

Ben I did not mean to imply that you were reyling on info from internet, I know that you are to well informed to do that but many landlords do rely on info on websites, even local authority sites, and this causes confusion. Whenever a person with authority to make a difference to your business asks or tell a landlord to do something we should also ask for the source of their request. If it cannot be sourced to a credible document than a landlord should not do what he is asked. The request should be put in writing, email is fine, so that the landlord has a paper trail. Landlords are running a business and Marks & Spencers would not carry out expensive changes without been given a source for the request - why should we. In my opinion this is the only way to stop misinterpretation of laws and regulations.

When HMO licensing began in Birmingham the student area was given the attention of the LA. One EHO was asking landlords to box in metres with plasterboard (this was likely to last from Christmas day until Boxing day) and several landlords did it. When we asked the EHO to source his request he could not and it stopped. Another EHO would not allow the use of Georgian wired glass where glass needed to be safe. By going to the fire department we sourced that fact that this was perfectly safe and again the EHO was stopped.

Spot on Mary, when dealing with the council always get names of people you speak to and keep everything in writing, we are buggers like that haha

Virtually every council seems to have a webpage giving info on HMO regs, maybe the HCA or CLG should flag up the inconsistencies.

Your brum experiences are classic examples of that. This is why I advocate getting them to quote chapter and verse to justify their position. When I am delivering training courses on a variety of housing law issues I often get weird questions about the way they have been doing things and emphasise that they have to seperate out statutes from council policies. It is not unkown for local authorities to make what are termed "Ultra Vires" decisions, these are decisions that go beyond a council's statutory powers

Thats interesting Ian. I didnt know about the fire regs/sprinkler problem. I would imagine that is imposed on EHOs from above and that many EHOs would agree with you on its use and effectiveness.

When inspecting a house EHOs now have to use the infernal Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), 29 different categories of hazards. I have heard that the steepness of your stairs is an issue but only when taken into account with the age of the occupier. Thank god I dont have to deal with that stuff

We have a guy in the West Midlands who is a big HMO landlord and is strong supporter of sprinklers. He often quotes figures from the USA where sprinkler systems are widely used but he cannot get local authorities to take an interest. They are happy for them to be fitted but they must be in addition to fire doors and smoke alarms not a replacement for them.

We had a case a couple of years ago that added to their concern. A landlord has a property painted and the painter emulsioned over a sprinkler head, when there was a fire the paint had sealed the head and the sprinkler failed. Some landlords have concerns that students may use cigarette lighters to set sprinklers off for a bit of fun and that would cause extensive damage to furnishings and furniture.