BBC investigation reveals London’s unlicensed HMO crisis

Reply to the comment left by Monty Bodkin at 01/08/2025 – 10:59
Oh they will. When they realise you aren’t complying, and there’s an opportunity to get a 12 (soon to be 24) month repayment of rent.

All fueled by councils arbitrary increased minimum sizes and also the countrywide minimum room size of 6.51 m which means many illegal but absolutely lovely rooms have to bu law remain permanently empty. Presuming not deliberate presumably only the hopelessness of anybody making rules to understand what the real issues are. Which is not size of rooms it is amount of rooms.

It is absolutely no surprise whatsoever that there are thousands of unlicensed HMO‘s in London. There are up to half a million illegal immigrants living in London- so where are they living?. They can’t take normal tenancies or join any housing lists and have to live under the radar so it’s a perfect demand for rogue landlords to crowd them into unsuitable properties.

Good comment Roogy. The BBC’s programme didn’t really say more than we knew! maybe slightly less. The government thinks it’s God to the rental market?? Oh yeah! We saw this with the rent controls What happened? Landlords left, Oh really that sounds familiar?

Just to stir things up a bit if local authorities lack the resource to tackle unlicensed HMOs etc doesn’t it make sense for them to consider options available to them such as selective licensing? I’ve often seen landlords on 118 complaining that they have to pay a high license fee but only receive one inspection during the licence period. I would hope that the local authorities using selective licensing are targeting those landlords that have not licensed rather than those that have. I didn’t see the programme but realise that inspecting HMOs in areas such as Newham will take enormous levels of resource. Ultimately though, unincorporated landlords with mortgages in the south east and London in particular face significant difficulty in making a profit. The temptation is to use multi occupancy and to cut corners to make any sort of return. In my view landlords that fail to offer decent/safe homes should be dealt with accordingly but taxation policy fails to support those landlords acting responsibly. For example if I need to improve properties to meet forthcoming EPC standards the costs are treated as capital items and can not be offset against my profit for income tax purposes and as mortgage interest costs are not considered an expense this means that for many unincorporated landlords with mortgages, and another source of income (salary, pension) there is little or no income from their property business to fund these improvements. When I re-mortgaged 2 years ago my borrowing costs increased dramatically. This coincided with receiving my state pension and a personal pension. Although my portfolios profit and loss showed a loss, for income tax purposes which disallowed finance costs the portfolio made a good profit and as my pensions had used part of my 20% allowance part of this ‘profit’ ended up being taxed at 40% reduced to 20% after the tax credit. Landlords can borrow to fund improvements but once again the interest is not considered as an expense for tax purposes. The only options for London and South East landlords with borrowing seem to be sell up, downsize and decrease mortgages, incorporate (which has costs and risks if not carried out correctly ) or go rogue. That’s enough. I’m just off to Rightmove to check the market out and calculate the capital gains tax due!

“I would hope that the local authorities using selective licensing are targeting those landlords that have not licensed rather than those that have.”

Of course they aren’t!

They are just policing the easy target landlords, avoiding the real criminals, creating jobs for themselves and being seen to be “doing something about it.”

Landlord licensing is a big win-win for useless council bureaucrats

Reply to the comment left by Monty Bodkin at 03/08/2025 – 01:28
So if licensing/registration and enforcement are not the solution what do you propose?

Reply to the comment left by at 03/08/2025 – 14:04
Go back to the 1988 Act which by and large worked well, give the tenants a wide choice of properties without government interference. Let the market decide rents which would be lower, given that landlord taxes would also be lower. Get rid of all the unnecessary and deliberate government bureaucracy, stop trying to catch landlords with heavy fines.

When tenants have a choice, the slumlords will disappear.

Reply to the comment left by TheMaluka at 03/08/2025 – 15:29
I agree that there needs to be a competitive market with plenty of choice to drive standards up, but to do that there needs to be change in fiscal policy. The 1988 act essentially established buy to let with a view to creating a bigger private rented sector and to provide a viable alternative to the social sector. It is still the prevailing legislation until the RRB is passed into legislation. The significant legislative factor that has changed since 2016 is the policy on taxation.

Reply to the comment left by at 03/08/2025 – 16:41
Just to clarify, there has been much legislation since the 1988 act, most to the detriment of landlords, with section 24 being the supreme death knell for many. Much of the post 1988 legislation should be repealed as it has done little or nothing to improve the housing environment.
The RRB will alter the whole temper of letting, and in my opinion abandoning fixed term tenancies will be even more devastating than the loss of section 21.