Changes to property licensing including houses in multiple occupation (HMOs)
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Additional Licensing
Additional licensing applies to HMO properties that are not covered by mandatory HMO licensing.
We ran a borough-wide additional licensing scheme between July 2016 and July 2021, which has now ended.
Following a public consultation carried out between 5 August and 5 November 2021, we have approved a new borough-wide additional licensing scheme, which starts on 27 October 2022
More details can be found in the Property Licensing Consultation 2021 section on this page.
Selective Licensing
Licensing of all privately rented properties not covered by the mandatory or additional HMO Licensing schemes is known as selective licensing.
We don't currently have any selective licensing schemes, but as part of the consultation carried out between July and November 2021, we consulted on proposals for the phased introduction of 3 selective licensing schemes in parts of the borough.
We have now approved 1 of these schemes in the wards of Burnt Oak, Colindale North and Colindale South.
This scheme is expected to start late 2023.
More details can be found in the Property Licensing Consultation 2021 section on this page.
What will be changing
The council made a designation for a new borough-wide additional licensing scheme on the 26 July 2022, bringing into effect the requirement for all HMOs covered by the additional licensing scheme to be licenced from the 27 October 2022
All landlords of HMOs will be required to obtain a licence for their property. Any licences under the previous scheme will remain in place until they expire, they will then need to be renewed.
We propose to introduce a selective licensing scheme in Burnt Oak, Colindale North and Colindale South. This won't include some regeneration areas.
The scheme will commence in October 2022, requiring all other privately rented properties in these areas to be licensed from January 2023.
Once the designation is made, these webpages will be updated and a copy of the designation will be published on them.
It was agreed at Housing and Growth Committee on 13 June 2022 to start a consultation on revised proposals for a second phase of selective licensing in other parts of the borough.
This will start in September 2022. If approved, these proposals will be subject to confirmation by the Secretary of State due to the extent of the combined schemes.
Property Licensing Consultation 2021
The consultation which ran for 13 weeks attracted responses from tenants, residents, landlords, letting agents and other interested parties.
A range of comments were received from respondents about the proposals. These have all been considered and our response has been provided.
We also reviewed all of the consultation data and applied it to the new ward boundaries that came into effect in May 2022
As a result of some of the comments received and of the review of data, several changes to the proposals have been made.
Contact us
If you would like any more information on private property licensing, please contact:
HMO Licensing Team
London Borough of Barnet
2 Bristol Avenue, London NW9 4EW
Telephone: 020 8359 5355
Email: hmos@barnet.gov.uk