Proposed Changes to licence all HMO's and introduce Planning Permission requirement for HMO's by Nottingham City Council

You may be aware Nottingham City Council is requesting that the Government makes legislative changes in two areas: houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) licensing and planning. The outcome of these changes is that the number of HMOs in a locality could be controlled to prevent what they consider to be an unbalanced housing market and that levels of control will be available through licensing to prevent HMOs having a negative impact on a neighbourhood.

They believe this would achieve a more balanced housing market and improve housing and environmental conditions.They are requesting that legislative change is undertaken to extend the current mandatory licensing of HMOs to all HMOs and secondly that legislation is introduced so that conversion of a house to a HMO would require planning permission. The proposed extension of licensing to cover all HMOs would allow management conditions to be applied that are not available in other legislation. These management controls would control the HMO issues that are currently having an adverse impact on the neighbourhood. The promotion of voluntary schemes such as accreditation to owners of this type of property would also be possible.Increased planning controls will control the further development of HMOs to rebalance the housing market and support a neighbourhood of mixed housing use.

The first consultation with Nottingham City Council to discuss the above issues will take place on Tuesday 13th October 2009 at 5:15pm at the EMPO office. We urge all landlords to attend this meeting so that the council is aware of any concerns you may have at this stage. Following on from this consultation, EMPO will be holding a meeting at the EMPO office on the 15th October at 5:00pm. This will be a chance for all EMPO members to voice their concerns over the proposals and decide how we should proceed with the proposals being put forward. For further information call the EMPO office on 0115 950 2639 or email This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it