The Amenity Standards for HMOs in England and Wales are now in force.
The new definition of HMO involves any building or flat in which two or more households share basic amenities.
A household is defined as a single person, a married/cohabiting couple, or a family. So HMOs will include many sharing arrangements (including joint tenancies) many of which were excluded before.
HMOs with three or more storeys, two or more households and five or more persons must be licensed.
Councils also have the discretion to require licensing below these numbers.
Our previous newsletter "LandlordLOG May 2006", sets out the new Management Standards for all HMOs - including smaller HMOs that won’t need a licence under the new rules.
If you have not already done so, you should read the earlier newsletter to ensure you are familiar with the new management standards applying to all HMOs.
Government is not setting national minimum room sizes. It will give Councils the discretion to set these locally, taking account of the local property types. It will rely on training for Councils to avoid variations.
The government will review the national amenity standards after three years.
Here we continue our series of newsletters on the Housing Act 2004, its measures and its implications for landlords.
The government has now issued amenity standards covering among other things wash hand basins, bathrooms and WCs for licensed Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs).Â
These standards are mandatory and all councils have to apply them. However, individual councils at able to specify HIGHER standards than those specified in the Act where they feel local conditions warrant it.
The Government is to review these standards after three years.
The Act is introducing a huge amount of red-tape especially for HMO landlords, not to mention the extra work load for Local Authorities and Environmental Health Officers.
Whilst responsible landlords want to provide good safe accommodation they rather resent too much red-tape.
In my experience, if you want a management system to be implemented—make it simple. Much of this Act is far from simple—we live in interesting times. Tom Entwistle, Editor.
===========================================================
This issue is sponsored by Click4Quote.com the leading landlord insurance provider.
Landlord’s Insurance from Click4Quote.com
===========================================================
You can Download LandlordLOG in Adobe.pdf format or view as a web-page:
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/BlogNews/LandlordLOGAug06.pdf
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/BlogNews/newsletterAug06.htm
Links to the newsletter are also posted at:
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/BlogNews/newsletter-archive.htm and at
http://www.landlordlog.com/
===========================================================
Why not forward this e-mail to a friend and if you think they will benefit from this service register them at:
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/site-zone/register.htm
You are receiving this e-mail because you have subscribed to the LandlordZONE website, you have had dealings with us, or someone else has recommended you to us. If you would prefer not to receive these e-mails in future, click the UNSUBSCRIBE link in your e-mail and we will immediately and permanently remove you from our secure list. Remember, your details are totally secure and we do not pass them on to anyone else – that’s a promise.
When a new issue is ready links will be posted at http://www.landlordlog.com/ and in the newsletter archive on LandlordZONE (see link above) but another way is to Subscribe to our RSS Newsfeed.
Simply copy and paste the following link to your Newsfeed Reader:
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/blog/wp-rss2.php If you would like to know more about RSS News Feeds see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/rss/default.stm
