London Borough of Enfield

There is a high chance you will need a licence to rent out your property in Enfield although you need to study the arrangements carefully as one of the licensing schemes only applies to part of the borough. We will try to explain.

On 1 September 2020, Enfield Council introduced a borough wide additional licensing scheme. The council have also approved a selective licensing scheme which came into force on 1 September 2021.

There is also the mandatory HMO licensing scheme that applies across England.  So in total, there are three separate licensing schemes.

We will try to help you choose the right licence for your property.

1. Mandatory HMO licence

You will need a mandatory HMO licence if your property meets the standard test, self-contained flat test or converted building test HMO definition in section 254 of the Housing Act 2004 and is occupied by five or more people.

But what are these tests and what does this mean in practice? It means you need a licence for any house or flat that is occupied by five or more people who are not all related and live in the property as their main home. For example, it includes:

• Shared houses and flats occupied by students and young professionals;
• Properties converted into bedsits with some shared facilities; and
• Properties converted into a mixture of self-contained and non self-contained accommodation.

Prior to 1 October 2018, the mandatory HMO licensing scheme only applied to properties that were three or more storeys in height, but that restriction has now been lifted.

The government have decided to exclude purpose built self-contained flats within a block comprising three or more self-contained flats from the mandatory HMO licensing scheme. While this will be good news for some landlords, it does make the licensing scheme far more complicated.

To find out more, you can read our free guide to mandatory HMO licensing (here).

2. Additional licence

The additional licensing scheme came into force on 1 September 2020 and will continue for five years until 31 August 2025, unless the council decide to revoke the scheme or implement a replacement scheme.

It applies to most HMOs in the London Borough of Enfield, including all properties shared by three or more people who are not all related and share facilities.

The council have excluded ‘section 257 HMOs: certain converted blocks of flats’ from the scheme. These are properties that:

• have been converted into self-contained flats; and
• less than two thirds of the flats are owner occupied; and
• the conversion did not comply with the relevant Building Regulations in force at that time and still does not comply.

3. Selective licence

You will need a selective licence if your property (house or flat) is let out to a single household or two individual sharers and is in the council wards of Bowes, Chase, Edmonton Green, Enfield Highway, Enfield Lock, Haselbury, Jubilee, Lower Edmonton, Palmers Green, Ponders End, Southbury, Southgate Green, Turkey Street and Upper Edmonton.

This adds another layer of complexity as most landlords won’t be familiar with the ward boundaries and neither will tenants or agents. To find out if your property is within the selective licensing area, you can the postcode search facility on the council’s website to check which council ward it is in. 

In summary, if you rent out a House in Multiple Occupation in Enfield, it will need to be licensed if it meets their scheme criteria. If you rent out any other property, it will need to be licensed if it is in one of the fourteen wards listed.

It depends on the type of licence you are applying for.

Mandatory HMO licence

There is a fixed fee of £1,155 (was £1,100 in 2020/21, £697 in 2019/2020) for an HMO with up to five lettable rooms. For larger HMOs, the cost increases according to the number of lettings.

Additional licence

There is a fixed fee of £900 per property.

Selective licence

There is a fixed fee of £600 per property.

The licence application fees are payable in two instalments, so you won’t have to pay the full cost up front. 

The council do not advertise any discounts for accredited landlords, which we think is a shame.

The fees we have listed were correct as of September 2021 but could be subject to change in the future. You can view the fees in full on the council’s website. The mandatory HMO and additional licensing fees are here and the selective licensing fees are here. 

A new online application system has been developed to coincide with the introduction of additional licensing. You can find more information on the council’s website. Selective licensing information is here and HMO licensing information is here.

If you need assistance with your licence application, you can find companies offering a licence application handling service in our Landlord Suppliers Directory (here). Whilst we do handle some applications, we have limited capacity and specialise in more complex cases where we provide our clients with expert advice and assistance.

It is important to remember that submitting a licence application is only the start of the licence approval process. To help landlords understand what happens next, we have published a free guide here.

Enfield Council updated their HMO standards in March 2021 and you can view a copy on the council’s website.

The standards cover a range of issues such as kitchen, bathroom and toilet facilities, fire precautions, heating, lighting, ventilation and room sizes.

It is important to note that new absolute minimum bedroom sizes for licensed HMOs have been introduced for HMO licence applications approved on or after 1 October 2018:

• 4.64m2 for a child under 10 years old
• 6.51m2 for one person over 10 years old
• 10.22m2 for two people over 10 years old

The council can still ask for larger minimum sizes. These new minimum sizes apply throughout England to HMOs licensed under a mandatory HMO or additional licensing scheme.

In January 2015, Enfield Council had licensed 54 HMOs under the mandatory HMO licensing scheme. By April 2016, there were 75 licensed HMO, by May 2017 there were 124 licensed HMO, by June 2018 there were 154 licensed HMOs, by May 2019 there were 213 licensed HMOs and by August 2021 there were 312 licensed HMOs.

The Council keeps a public register of licensed HMOs that is regularly updated and can be viewed online. Select the type of licence from the drop down menu and search all, or select the name or street you are interested in.

In September 2020, Enfield Council said they think about 8,000 properties need licensing under their mandatory HMO and additional licensing schemes. It is believed the selective licensing scheme will cover another 23,000 properties. 

This indicates there could be thousands of landlords who need to get applications submitted as a matter of urgency.

Ignore the law and you could pay a heavy price. You risk being prosecuted by the Council and if found guilty you could get a criminal record, be fined an unlimited amount and ordered to pay court costs and a victim surcharge.

Alternatively, the council can issue you with a civil penalty notice of up to £30,000 for not having the correct licence without any warning being given, so this is really serious stuff.  

You could also be subject to a Rent Repayment Order and may have to repay up to 12 months rental income.

Whilst the property is unlicensed, you can’t use a Notice of Seeking Possession under Section 21 Housing Act 1988 to evict your tenants. 
  
And following a successful prosecution, you would probably fail a fit and proper person assessment, making it very difficult for you to obtain a property licence in the future.

Don’t put your livelihood and reputation at risk. Make sure you comply with the law.

Enfield Council told us they took no housing prosecutions over the five years from April 2011 to March 2016, which put them at the bottom of the league table when compared to other London Boroughs. 

Enfield Council did not obtain any Rent Repayment Orders from the landlords of unlicensed HMOs over the five years from April 2011 to March 2016. 

For all the latest information, you can search for housing prosecutions on the Mayor of London’s ‘Rogue landlord and agent checker’, available here.

There are landlord accreditation schemes operated by the London Landlord Accreditation Scheme, the National Landlords Association (NLA) and the Residential Landlords Association (RLA).  

Whilst we don’t have any figures for the NLA or RLA schemes, we have got information about the London Landlord Accreditation Scheme that is supported by all the London Boroughs. In January 2016, they told us there were 543 accredited landlords in Enfield, which was slightly above average when compared to all London boroughs.

By January 2018, there were 595 accredited landlords, by January 2019 there were 725 accredited landlords, by January 2020 there were 781 accredited landlords and by January 2021 there were 840 accredited landlords, which is below average when compared to all the London boroughs. To find out more about becoming accredited, you can visit the London Landlord Accreditation Scheme website here.

In addition to training and development, accredited landlords are entitled to various benefits, including discounted licensing fees in some boroughs. If you are not already a member, we would encourage you to think about joining!

An additional licensing scheme started on 1 September 2020. The council also launched a selective licensing scheme on 1 September 2021. It is quite a long story so we’ll try and keep it brief.

On 9 April 2014, Enfield Council’s Cabinet made a decision to implement borough wide selective and additional licensing schemes (read here). The schemes were due to come into force on 1 April 2015 and last for five years.

A local landlord, Mr Constantinos Regas, took the council to Judicial Review to try and get the licensing schemes overturned. Enfield Council’s Cabinet met to discuss the matter again on 12 November 2014 (read here). They further ratified their decision to implement a borough wide additional HMO licensing scheme.

The Judicial Review was heard in the High Court on 26 November 2014. On 11 December 2014, His Honour Judge McKenna handed down the judgement (read here). In summary, it was held that the Enfield additional and selective licensing schemes were not lawfully designated and so both licensing schemes were cancelled. The reason was linked to the consultation arrangements. 

Whilst the High Court refused permission for Enfield Council to appeal the decision, the council petitioned the Court of Appeal direct as they wanted to challenge the judgement. On 9 July 2015, the Council announced that they had been granted permission to appeal, but had decided not to do so. As a result, the Judicial Review decision stands and both licensing schemes have been cancelled.

It all then went quiet for a few years until, on 20 June 2019, a decision was made to consult again on two proposed licensing schemes. The decision was then called in by eight councillors unhappy about the decision.

On 15 July 2019, the issue was discussed by the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee (read here) who decided the consultation should proceed.

On 28 August 2019 the council launched a consultation on proposals to introduce additional and selective licensing schemes. The consultation continued until 29 November 2019 and you can find out more information here.

On 22 January 2020, the council’s Cabinet meeting approved proposals for a borough wide additional licensing scheme. They also decided to approach the Secretary of State for permission to implement selective licensing across 14 wards (read here – see agenda item 5).

On 18 May 2021, the Secretary of State approved Enfield’s selective licensing scheme and it came into force on 1 September 2021.

There is clearly a lot going on at Enfield Council so we will monitor the situation closely. You can sign up to our free newsletter for all the latest news.

You will need planning permission if you are changing your property from a single-family property to a house in multiple occupation (HMO) occupied by more than six people. HMOs occupied by more than six people fall within ‘sui-generis’ use for which planning permission is required. You also need planning permission if you a splitting up a property into smaller self-contained units of accommodation. 

For smaller HMOs, the rules are more complicated. HMOs occupied by up to six people fall into planning use class C4 whereas single-family properties fall into planning use class C3.

On 22 October 2012, Enfield Council made a borough-wide Article 4 Direction that removes the permitted development rights to change a property from use class C3 to use class C4 without planning permission. The HMO Article 4 Direction came into force on 22 October 2013 and you can download a copy from the ‘More Information’ box on the right of this page.

The effect of the Article 4 Direction is to require planning permission to change the use from a single-family property (C3) to an HMO with up to six occupants (class C4). So even letting your property to three people who are not all related could require planning permission.

We have prepared some general advice on HMO Article 4 Directions that you may find useful, available here. 

Remember that this is only intended as general advice and no liability can be accepted for any reliance upon information provided. We would strongly encourage you to contact the Council’s Planning Department or seek independent legal advice. You can find out more information on the council’s website. 

We certainly can. We understand the challenges of being a private landlord and so we have developed a Landlord Suppliers Directory to provide you with access to the goods and services you need. The Directory concentrates on businesses that operate in the London area.

Whether you a looking for a letting agent, want a property inventory for a new tenancy or fire risk assessment, we have got it covered – and far more besides!

As the leading experts in property licensing, we also offer a range of services ourselves. From handling the licence application process to advice on new HMO developments, we can help to ensure your property business remains compliant. If you need assistance, please drop us a line and see if we can help! 

New suppliers are regularly being added and we would encourage you to take a look. Some of our featured listings also contain YouTube videos, helping you to find out more about the business. 

You can contact the council at: 

HMO Licensing
Private Sector Housing Standards Team

Enfield Council
Civic Centre

Enfield EN1 3XH



Email: hmolicensing@enfield.gov.uk
Tel:     020 3821 1761
Website: www.enfield.gov.uk