Council requiring HMO landlords to hold utility accounts?

Neil
I suggest you take legal advice, or if you feel confident (perhaps aided by an AI agent such as ChatGPT) challenge the condition on your own. Section 67(6) of Housing Act 2004 says: “A licence may not include conditions requiring (or intended to secure) any alteration in the terms of any tenancy or licence under which any person occupies the house.”
The mandatory conditions in Sch 4 do not refer to bill-payers.
I cannot see the basis on which the Council can require you to be the bill-payer, even more so if you have a provision in your tenancy that the tenants (or one or more of them) must register as bill-payer with the utility companies. Requiring tenants to be the bill-payers is not onerous for them and the Council appear to have exceeded their powers. A robust challenge may be sufficient.
On a separate subject, but to give you encouragement, I successfully challenged a Council’s attempt in a selective licence to require me to obtain satisfactory references before letting. The Housing Act (and the minister, at the time Lord Rooker – as I discovered in Hansard) are clear: Landlords can be required to ask for references but are not obliged to obtain them. As Rooker said “The landlord is not the tenant’s keeper.”

Also have a look at Nottingham City Council v Parr [2018] UKSC 51 and R (Peat) v Hyndburn BC [2011] EWHC 1739.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 22/10/2026 – 11:10
I should have added that the very fact the Council allows you to require students sharing a house to be bill-payers weakens the Council’s case.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 22/10/2026 – 11:35
One generic consideration – which I suspect does not apply to Neil above – is that tenants who are SMI (in an HMO or under a Joint Tenancy agreement) can also apply for reduced cost utilities such as an unmetered water tariff and low cost broadband, but only the Court appointed Deputy or a person with PoA (Power of Attorney) for the SMI tenant can apply. A landlord cannot apply in their name for such utilities unless they have PoA or are a CoP Deputy for the SMI tenant – which is unlikely to be the case (though it is possible).

To prevent a tenant benefitting from these utility offerings through the act of forcing the Landlord to be the account holder, would be discriminatory, I suspect. Some utility providers may waive the requirement for the SMI person’s appointee having to apply for the special tariff, but that isn’t guaranteed.

I have to say.
This post really evidences the value of this ‘site’. A real collection of knowledge about a subject I would have just said. ‘Oh well Ill do it then…..’

For compliance with Housing Act 2004 Schedule 5 paras 14-18 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/34/schedule/5 ), the council should have sent you a notice that they intended to Vary the licence, setting out their reasons and given you the opportunity to make ‘Representations’ before they Varied the licence; If they did not then that is the 1st ground of any appeal you make, and if that ground applies it is so unreasonable you should claim costs too and have a decent chance of an award of costs. Secondly, with reference to Section 69(1), Variation is not justified if circumstances have not changed since the licence grant, and circumstances have not changed. Thirdly, the condition is plainly unlawful as Housing Act 2004 Section 67(6) clearly states “A licence may not include conditions requiring (or intended to secure) any alteration in the terms of any tenancy or licence under which any person occupies the house” and alteration of tenancy terms is clearly implied by that condition. Fourthly, circumstances at the house concerned, in particular that the house is let in its entirety to a group on a single joint tenancy, is such that the condition is inconsistent with the Upper Tribunal decision in ‘Fletcher v Portsmouth [2026] UKUT 234 (LC)’ particularly on grounds 1 and 5 therein, see: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukut/lc/2026/234 . I was the appellant in that case. The UT removed a condition inappropriately defining terms of occupation on my ground 1, and the decision on my ground 5 implies any condition imposed must be justified by the circumstances at the house concerned and local policy is not sufficient justification. So this is an easy win at FTT if the grounds are defined clearly and the case presented well, but you only have a limited time to submit the appeal application. If you run out of time, you can submit a formal request to have the licence Varied for the condition to be removed and if refused then appeal that decision, but you have no chance at all of claiming costs in that case, and appealing the first decision itself will make more sense to the judge.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 22/10/2026 – 11:10
May I ask you to share the FTT case reference of yours — that’s good one — I collect info on useful decisions on behalf of Portsmouth’s landlord association members – Thanks!

Reply to the comment left by Simon F at 22/10/2026 – 16:30
Hi Simon
My matter concerning references didn’t get to Tribunal. The Council accepted my point when I challenged them at the introduction of Selective Licensing.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 23/10/2026 – 11:22
Thanks to everyone who’s replied, particularly Ian, DPT and Simon. Some really useful points here.

Just to update you, I challenged the condition when Coventry first proposed varying the licence and then wrote again after the variation was issued. They’ve now replied confirming they won’t be changing it.

Interestingly, they acknowledge that the HMO Management Regulations don’t actually require landlords to hold utility accounts, but maintain that it’s an appropriate way of ensuring essential services aren’t interrupted.

I don’t disagree with the need to maintain supplies, but I still can’t see why that means the landlord should be responsible to the utility companies for whatever the tenants consume. If six students can manage their own bills under a joint tenancy, why can’t six working adults do exactly the same?

Simon, thanks for the reference to *Fletcher v Portsmouth*. I’ve had a look at it and your point about section 69 is particularly interesting. My licence was granted in April 2024 without this condition, and Coventry hasn’t explained what has changed since then to justify introducing it.

Ian, your point about section 67(6) is also helpful. The property is currently empty while I carry out some renovations, so there isn’t an existing tenancy that needs changing, but the condition will certainly affect how I can let it in future.

I’ve represented myself at the FTT before, so I’m quite prepared to do so again. Given Coventry’s response, I think that’s probably where this is heading.

Simon, if you’d be willing to share the grounds you used in your appeal, particularly those relating to the circumstances of the individual property, I’d be very interested to see them.

Thanks again everyone. Much appreciated.

Reply to the comment left by Earlsdon at 24/10/2026 – 10:08
Earlsdon, based on that info, there’s another clear ground: The council’s stated rationale is not consistent with regulations 5 + 6 of HMO Management Regs (SI 2006/372), see: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/372/regulation/6 : Reg 6(4) simply states: “The manager must not unreasonably cause the gas or electricity supply that is used by any occupier within the HMO to be interrupted.”. Thus, the HMO Manager’s Reg 6(4) obligation is to not unreasonably cause interruption, it does not extend to positively ensuring supply irrespective of whether the occupants pay bills they can reasonably be regarded as responsible for. Reg 5(2) for water supply is similarly defined.
On the point that they expect you to apply this to new rather than existing tenancies. The section 67(6) argument can still be carried, but needs more explanation. The words “(or intended to secure)” are interpreted by DCLG (now MHCLG) to mean future tenancies in non-statutory government guidance, see para 107 in https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a75b067ed915d6faf2b4efe/1446472.pdf : That guidance was withdrawn on 11 Dec 2024, but it was in effect at the time your licence was issued, and superceding guidance does not contradict that para 107, so it remains authoritiative. The council has not provided any reason for deviation from guidance that was in effect and applicable at the time the licence was granted.
On specifics of my case not already in the public domain, we should take that into 1-1 emails.