Wanted: 5 Floor House, 6 Beds, Garden on Kingsland Rd Needs People

Shallow Maive Nightmare!

The landlord's flipped and said that, in order to avoid paying for an HMO license (required if you rent out a place for 4 or more people), he will only have 4 people in the house. That means the rent would be £275969, 31 a week - or something.

I've asked the agent to ask him to bring the rent down, he said 'we'll see' - how else will they ever fill a £1,000 a week property split between 4 people in Dalston??

I don't think technically speaking this would count as an HMO, not unless you all had individual tenancy agreements, it sound more like a bunch of friends house sharing with a joint tenancy, from memory a rule of thumb test as to whether a property counted as an HMO was did each bedroom have it's own lock? It can't just be whether there are more than four people living there, otherwise any family with both parents and three children or a family with two kids and a grand parent living with them would be an HMO. Neither can it be dependent on how old the people are, or you could have a family of five let a house and not be an HMO till their eldest child turned 18 and hey presto, unless they can get an older child to move out, over night their house becomes an HMO. It'd make no sense. It's got to be about the nature of tenure, not just the number of people living there

Now I could be wrong about this but if you call Shelter's National Housing Advice Service on 0207014540 or their London Housing Aid Centre on 02070141540 they'll be able to give up to date advice on this and I'd expect, if neccessary, be willing to advise the landlord of the true position and mediate with him on your behalf.