Part 7Supplementary and final provisions

Meaning of “house in multiple occupation”

258HMOs: persons not forming a single household

(1)

This section sets out when persons are to be regarded as not forming a single household for the purposes of section 254.

(2)

Persons are to be regarded as not forming a single household unless—

(a)

they are all members of the same family, or

(b)

their circumstances are circumstances of a description specified for the purposes of this section in regulations made by the appropriate national authority.

(3)

For the purposes of subsection (2)(a) a person is a member of the same family as another person if—

(a)

those persons are married to F1, or civil partners of, each other or live together as if they were a married couple or civil partners;

(b)

one of them is a relative of the other; or

(c)

one of them is, or is a relative of, one member of a couple and the other is a relative of the other member of the couple.

(4)

For those purposes—

(a)

a “couple” means two persons who F2... fall within subsection (3)(a);

(b)

“relative” means parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece or cousin;

(c)

a relationship of the half-blood shall be treated as a relationship of the whole blood; and

(d)

the stepchild of a person shall be treated as his child.

(5)

Regulations under subsection (2)(b) may, in particular, secure that a group of persons are to be regarded as forming a single household only where (as the regulations may require) each member of the group has a prescribed relationship, or at least one of a number of prescribed relationships, to any one or more of the others.

(6)

In subsection (5) “prescribed relationship” means any relationship of a description specified in the regulations.