Online landlord licensing forms slammed as council advertises on the Tube

“Are councils seriously expecting landlords to ask who is sleeping with whom?”
I really do relish the thought of having my face slapped. When is this special military operation against landlords going to end?

Outrageous levels of fines.

There really is no such thing as an “early bird” scheme in relation to licensing and Councils across the country are misleading landlords by promoting such things. A licence is legally required from the day the scheme is launched and whilst the Council may give landlords a short grace period where they don’t prosecute or charge the full fee, that doesn’t change the law. A tenant could still claim a Rent Repayment Order during the “early bird” period and any s21 notice served would be invalid.

This is so ridiculous. Why do the tenants have a rebate of 12 months rent? Surely, the license will not be delayed by 12 months.
This is totally outrageous way of council charges.
For a start licensing has nothing to do the tenants protection.
There is more evidence that the private landlords look after the tenants a lot better than the council ever did it could do.

I applied the day applications opened, but had to wait well beyond the promised response time before I heard anything.

The inspection involved three people, none of whom seemed to know much about the realities of renting property. For example I mentioned the first thing my previous tenants had done was cut down the wired in fire alarms. I assumed it was in order to smoke (something!) within the property. The inspector suggested I told the tenants that this was not allowed. But had no answer when I pointed out that landlords were no longer in a position to sanction tenants. I doubted whether courts would see this a minor misdemeanor as sufficient cause for eviction. She pointed to evidence that a radiator had leaked. I pointed to a brand new radiator valve. She pointed to a pound coin sized discolouration on the bathroom ceiling which she thought might be damp. I suggested that even if it were damp that was pretty good for a bathroom that had not been painted for 5 years. The corker was them questioning why the kitchen door opened outwards. I suggested it would make exit quicker in the event of a fire. They argued that it could be dangerous should someone be carrying hot things into the kitchen. But isn’t it more likely that people carry hot things out of a kitchen?!

The licence (which I got without conditions) was really only interested in the EPC, Gas Safe, insurance and EiCR. And me paying a large fee. Why dont we have a system like with cars where insurance, MOT and parking permits are on line and can be instantly checked. Unless the rationale is actually the large fee!

I would add that the form was very difficult to understand. To the extent that, from memory, they had add a separate dialogue box at the end allowing you to expand/explain any answers.

The Westminster one is equally grim, and without that extra box.

I have owned my property in Wandsworth for decades. It is in a nice residential street. Neighbours would complain if there were problems. They do not. This process is expensive and reduces my profitability at a time when I need to make a major investment to get a Victorian terrace from EPC D to EPC C. Instead I expect to sell at the end of the current tenancy. And Wandsworth will lose a group of young professionals who pay council tax and spend money in the local economy but who don’t use many council services.

The Wandsworth form is seriously difficult to follow and there is no official help desk available to answer queries although I have been told off the record by someone from the council that room sizes are taken extremely seriously, so the fact that the third bedroom in my 3-bed 2-bath flat is 20cm2 too small to meet HMO requirements, I won’t be accepted for a licence. This is the bedroom with the 2nd bathroom as an en-suite too.
I can of course pay £650 and apply to see if I can carry on renting to 3 tenants sharers in each individual bedroom, but it is very unlikely to be passed and I will forfeit the fee. So I must rent to 2 sharers using just 2 of the bedrooms – no licence required for this… yet.
On the other hand, were one of those 2 sharers to move their partner in, then I would need a licence. So my options are rent to 2 sharers with instructions not to use that 3rd bedroom or allow their partner to move in or to sell up
Another thing: Wandsworth insists on a PAT test certificate and a fire safety assessment in its selective HMO licence application. The fire safety assessment failed because there wasn’t a smoke alarm in every room and I hadn’t been keeping a log showing weekly tests of them all. Nor did I have a log showing monthly fire drills.
Meanwhile, I applied for licences for my other two properties that required them back in August. One has come through but the other one is still pending.
Total shambles and they say landlords have nothing to fear….

Reply to the comment left by Barbara Gwyer at 06/01/2026 – 17:45
You are probably right about room sizes. When I was looking for tenants a desperate estate agent phoned. They had tenants about to move into a flat but Wandsworth had just rejected the HMO application because on of the rooms was too small. Too small for Wandsworth presumably, but not for the tenant. Mine had double bedrooms but was, inevitably, too expensive.

Wandsworth did agree to license three bedrooms for four people in three households, so there is some leeway. Partly I think because I pointed out how unaffordable the house was for anyone not working in the City.