The Licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation (Prescribed Descriptions) (England) Order 2006

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order prescribes a description of a house in multiple occupation (“HMO”) to which Part 2 of the Housing Act 2004 (“the Act”) applies. Under section 61(1) of the Act every HMO to which Part 2 of the Act applies must be licensed unless it is subject to either a temporary exemption notice under section 62 of the Act or an interim or final management order under Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Act.

The Order applies to HMOs in England but does not apply to converted blocks of flats to which section 257 of the Act applies. These are buildings that have been converted into and consist of self-contained flats where the building work undertaken in connection with the conversion did not comply with the appropriate building standards and still does not comply with them, and less than two-thirds of the self-contained flats are owner-occupied.

Article 3(2) sets out the conditions HMOs must satisfy in order to be of a description prescribed by article 3(1). One of the conditions is that all or part of an HMO comprises three or more storeys. Article 3(3) lists the storeys of an HMO that are to be taken into account when calculating whether the HMO or any part of it comprises three storeys or more.

A full regulatory impact assessment of the effect that this Order will have on the costs of business is available from the Licensing Branch, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 2/G9 Eland House, Bressenden Place, London, SW1E 5DU (telephone [phone], e-mail [e-mail]).