Report - London Borough of Hillingdon

10. The street survey of HMOs carried out in 2007/2008 shows that the Brunel and Heathrow
area markets have merged, with HMO increases in most wards. That is one of the reasons this
proposal now covers the south of the Borough below the A40.
11. North of the A40, the housing market is different and there is a separation by house size
and price. Although there are HMOs in Ruislip and Northwood, the market area is different and
is not popular for the Brunel/Heathrow areas due to transport links. Essentially, you need a car
and there are plenty of cheaper rented properties in the South.
12. The majority of HMOs in Hillingdon are predominantly two storey housing stock, Mandatory
HMO Licensing does not apply to 2 storey accommodation and has been of limited use as an
enforcement tool. Only 106 known HMOs fall within Mandatory HMO licensing and all of these
have been licensed. Any new mandatory HMOs found are normally as a result of a loft
conversion, which increases the mandatory trigger of five tenants and three storeys.
13. Our 2008 stock condition survey carried out by Fordhams Research estimated that there
are now 2,310 HMOs within the Borough with up to 150 within the definition of a Mandatory
Licensable HMO.
14. In order to provide accurate data for this submission, we have been using Council Tax data
where student exemption has been applied for, and have carried out a door knocking street
survey over the last twelve months within the thirteen wards in the south of the Borough. Access
has been a problem and, as the stock condition figures show, we are still well short of knowing
the true number of HMOs in the Borough.
15. We have, as a Borough, operated HMO Registration since September 1997, with this
becoming our Transitional Licensing Scheme from April 2006. This has proved to be an
excellent tool for us in dealing with HMOs under the new licensing regime, enabling us to target
the large numbers of one and two storey HMOs and encourage landlords to come forward and
meet the requirements of the new Housing Act 2004. The only downside has been that we have
not been able to license many of the student properties around Brunel as Transitional Licensing
excluding ‘student sharers’ due to an old piece of legislation. Many landlords had been taking in
groups of tenants on single tenancy agreements in order to avoid being classed as an HMO.
Moving to Additional Licensing through this application will remove that anomaly and bring the
properties within licensing.
16. We wish to continue the success of our Transitional Scheme with Additional Licensing, with
the added benefit of being able to deal with the large numbers of student HMOs around Brunel
University. This will help us with the problems of ‘studentification’ described above.
17. Although Licensing does not give us the ability to prevent properties becoming HMOs, our
experience has shown that the penalties that Licensing brings forces the less professional and
least compliant landlords out of the market, having an indirect impact on controlling numbers of
HMOs within specific streets. Approximately 40% of owners move out of the market when
faced with regulation.
18. In order to avoid confusion to Landlords, we felt that the same occupancy criteria as
Mandatory Licensing of two or more households, five or more occupants would be the simplest
option. This will avoid the issue of two different types of HMO Licensing scheme operating
PART I – MEMBERS, PUBLIC AND PRESS
Cabinet Member Decision – 5 January 2009 Page 3