Enforcement of the HMO Licensing Scheme
HMO licensing has applied to all HMOs across the city since 2012 and since that time it has provided a level playing field for all landlords and licence holders, this has meant that they are more accountable for the management and improvements of the HMOs in the city. The council, when it first introduced HMO licensing did not want it to be a paper exercise and were clear to be effective the scheme have to be enforced appropriately.
The enforcement of the scheme is undertaken with a phased approach:
- Stage 1 – conditions applied to licences
- Stage 2 – non-compliance with the conditions will lead to further action either by service of a financial penalty and/or an increase in the renewal fee. The increased fee is due to the increase in time taken in processing such licences.
- Stage 3 – where there is repeated non- compliance or where the non-compliance is of a serious nature a prosecution will be considered along with revocation of the licence.
In all cases where a financial penalty is served, the fit and proper status of those issued with the penalty will be assessed which could result in the licence being revoked.
9 financial penalties have been served, 3 for breaches of conditions, 1 for overcrowding within a HMO, 3 for breaches of the HMO Management Regulations and 1 for an unlicensed HMO. The financial penalties resulted in £42,279 total fines. In addition to this, 4 prohibition orders were served in relation to hazardous HMOs. 72 licences were issued with an increased application fee demonstrating that the licence conditions had not been complied with. This is an improvement on the previous year where 81 were issued.
