City-wide HMO Additional Licensing being introduced in July

A new Additional Licensing Scheme for smaller Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) is being introduced across Brighton & Hove from 1 July.

The city-wide scheme is for HMOs of 2 or more storeys with 3 or 4 occupiers. Licence applications for property owners and managing agents for those HMOs will open from 1 July.

A Selective Licensing Scheme for certain private rented homes in the Kemptown, Moulsecoomb & Bevendean, Queens Park and Whitehawk & Marina wards is also being introduced in September.

Additional and selective licensing are schemes local authorities can introduce to address issues such as poor management standards and poor property conditions

The introduction of the 2 property licensing schemes was agreed at the Housing & New Homes Committee held on 13 March 2024, to support improvements in the standard of private rented accommodation in the city.

While many landlords run their properties responsibly, issues reported through the council show that management, standards and quality of private rented homes are not consistent.

The aim is to drive improvement in conditions and management standards in the city’s expanding private rented housing sector, with over a third of households in the city renting privately.

Consultations on the schemes ran between October 2023 and January 2024 and received broad agreement from residents to both schemes, while landlords and agents generally disagreed.

Additional HMO Licensing

The city-wide Additional Licensing Scheme covers smaller HMOs with fewer occupants than properties accommodating 5 or more people over 2 or more households which fall under the Mandatory HMO Licensing Scheme.

The designation notice for the introduction of the Additional Licensing Scheme was published in March and we have been in contact with owners and managers of properties licensed under the previous scheme to update our records.

We estimate the Additional HMO licensing scheme across the city will cover around 2,200 properties.

We’ll be updating the information on our property licensing pages over the next few weeks, with the online additional licensing application forms live from 1 July

The previous 5-year term of the city-wide Additional HMO Licensing Scheme ended in 2023.

This additional licensing scheme covered around 1,900 HMOs across the city and allowed us to work closely with landlords to improve properties.

A number of licence conditions were set through the scheme, resulting in improvements made to management, building and safety standards that benefitted around 5,500 tenants.

Further information