London council widens its landlord licensing as inspections uncover safety issues

Cheap small bedrooms; well we can’t have any of that affordable accommodation can we?

Make them have bigger……… Oh they can’t afford bigger and are now homeless…….here have some temporary accommodation which is just as small as we have rescued you from and miles away from work, schools and friends.

There, that’s sorted those evil landlords.

That has seen 85 formal notices being issued where safety standards were not met.

Lets see the actual breakdown according to HHRSS determination by category first shall we to see exactly what these refer to….

It also says tenants may also be able to reclaim up to 12 months’ rent, Housing Benefit or Universal Credit where offences are proven.

Presumably not if the HC/UC has been paid directly to the LL? If that is the case then surely it falls to the DWP to take this up with the LL via a separate claim?

Reply to the comment left by Paul Essex at 16/12/2025 – 09:31
How do you increase the size of a bedroom in an HMO, without eviction at least one tenant?

Possibly the most blatant abuse of licensing. A clear money-making operation from the council which served S21s on its own tenants… to re-let to asylum seekers and refugees.

“Bedrooms so small that they pose a risk to occupants?” What nonsense. Our smallest rooms always went fastest because they were so loved partly because of cost. Sadly with the silly 6.51 minimum room size for HMO we had to sell of three properties evicting 12 tenants because we could not have a room with a permanently empty room. How does this help anyone? (Actually one of those sold to another landlord filled it and divided the largest room into two, renting to at least 5; illegal but obviously good for the tenants)

Of course they want to justify their licensing schemes. Most of the issues revealed on inspection will be minor stuff that has very little real impact on tenant safety like a door closer missing/broken or whatever. What mass licensing schemes do is turn council officers into pen pushers and box tickers processing licensing applications, rather than intelligence led investigators going after the serious hardcore rogue landlords.

Councils already have power to do inspections independent of the licensing regime and will get more such powers under RRA. That, in combination with the government’s online portal, ought to render licensing schemes redundant. Instead they are being expanded at scale to raise more revenue and employ more public servants.

Reply to the comment left by Simon Williams at 16/12/2025 – 11:20
The real rogue landlords have been known about for years, and are allowed to continue.

Inspectors found properties …with bedrooms so small they posed a risk to occupants.
Surely.
They are at or about the legal minimum or not. Where does this bit come from?

Reply to the comment left by Ross Tulloch at 16/12/2025 – 10:26
drop an anonymous email to the council…and let them enforce….

What earth would I want them to enforce? What good is that going to do to the tenants there who happily live there in rooms of their own choosing at prices that they were presumably accepting they would need to pay. Unless I just deliberately want to be nasty. I think in this case the landlord is serving the tenants well the problem is the silly minimum room sizes.