Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames

You do not need a licence if you rent your property to a single family as Kingston Council do not operate a selective licensing scheme.

If you rent out your property as a House in Multiple Occupation (HMO), the answer is a bit more complicated. Kingston Council operate both an additional licensing scheme and the mandatory HMO licensing scheme that applies throughout England.

The additional licensing scheme came into force on 21 December 2012 and applied borough wide. The scheme lasted for five years and ended on 20 December 2017. However, that's not the end of the matter as the council introduced a new additional licensing scheme on 1 March 2018 which lasts for another five years.
 
To help you decide if you need a licence, we have outlined the two HMO licensing schemes below:

1. Mandatory HMO licensing

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 licensing

A new additional licensing scheme came into force on 1 March 2018.

You will need an additional licence if your property is let as a House in Multiple Occupation that does not fall within the remit of the mandatory HMO licensing scheme but it meets the following criteria:

• It is one or two storeys high and occupied by five or more people; or
• It is three or more storeys high and occupied by three or four people

We believe Kingston Council have excluded section 257 HMOs from their licensing scheme although their website is not that clear so you may wish to contact them direct to check. 

Kingston Council’s HMO licensing fees vary according to the size of the building.

In a property one or two storeys high, the fee is £200 (was £135 in 2015/16) per room available for letting. So that would be £1,000 (was £675 in 2015/16) for a five bed shared house.

In a property three or more storeys high, the fee is £240 (was £200 in 2015/16) per room available for letting. So that would be £1,200 (was £1,000 in 2015/16) for a five bed shared house.

There is a discount of £100 if the licence holder or designated manager is a member of the London Landlord Accreditation Scheme or another approved scheme. Further discounts are available for licence renewals.

There is an extra £300 fee if the council find you are operating a licensable but unlicensed property – they may also prosecute you, so you need to act quickly!

The fees are correct as of November 2018 but may be subject to change in the future. You can find the fees listed on the council’s website. 

You can apply and pay online via the council's website.

Alternatively, you can download an application form to complete by hand or contact the council and ask them to send you an application pack in the post.

In addition to completing the application form, they ask you to provide various supporting information so make sure you have all your paperwork ready.  

If you need assistance with your licence application, we can help you. We offer a unique hassle-free, one-stop-shop service to handle your licence application from start to finish and all for a fixed fee. As part of the service, we carry out an inspection of your property and provide expert advice on compliance. You can find out more about our licence application handling service here.

You can also find other companies offering a licence application handling service in our Landlord Suppliers Directory (here).

Yes, in November 2015 Kingston Council introduced updated HMO Standards that you can download from the council’s website. Alternatively you can download a copy from the ‘More Information’ box on the right of this page. We like to try and make your life a little easier!

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

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.

As of March 2016, Kingston Council had licensed 319 HMOs, an increase of 67 over the last twelve months.

In October 2016, the Council announced that 170 properties were licensed under the mandatory HMO scheme and a further 165 properties under the additional licensing scheme, a further increase to 335 properties.

By March 2018, the total number of licensed HMOs had increased to 430.

The council keeps a public register of all licensed properties which is regularly updated and can be viewed on their website.

Yes, it seems like there may be quite a few. In March 2015, Kingston Council told us they had no estimate for the number of properties that need licensing under the mandatory HMO licensing scheme. But when the additional licensing scheme was implemented in 2012, they thought the scheme would cover 500 to 1,000 properties.

So this does suggest they could still be hundreds of unlicensed HMOs still out there. If you are the landlord of a licensable but unlicensed property in Kingston, you need to act now to avoid the consequences.

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. We can help you get your property licensed! (find out more).

Kingston Council told us they have taken one housing prosecution over the five years from April 2011 to March 2016, so that puts them at the lower end of the prosecution league table when compared to other London boroughs. The prosecution was not for a licensing offence.

Kingston Council has not obtained any Rent Repayment Orders from the landlords of unlicensed HMOs over the five years from April 2011 to March 2016.

With potentially so many unlicensed properties still out there, we expect Kingston will be stepping up their housing enforcement action over the next 12 - 18 months, so beware!

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 300 accredited landlords in Kingston upon Thames, which was in the bottom quartile when compared to all London boroughs.

By January 2018, that figure had increased to 420, which is in the bottom five 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! 

A replacement additional licensing scheme was introduced on 1 March 2018. The decision was confirmed at the council’s Housing Sub-Committee meeting on 2 November 2017 (read here). We will explain the background to this decision.

In December 2016, we discovered the council had just completed a public consultation on plans to review their additional licensing scheme. We understand the consultation took place from 7 October to 16 December 2016.

Unfortunately, no one from the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames told us they were carrying out the consultation and so we were unable to tell anyone! 

When we carried out further checks in June 2017, we found the council were doing another round of consultation on proposals to renew the additional licensing scheme. The council said the consultation was open until 6 August 2017 although that was later changed to say September 2017. You can find out more information about the consultation on the  council’s website.

There is clearly a lot going on in Kingston upon Thames so we will monitor the situation closely and keep you posted. 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 will also need planning permission if you a splitting up a property into smaller self-contained units of accommodation.

For small HMOs, the rules are a bit more complicated. HMOs occupied and shared by between three and six people fall into planning use class C4 whereas single-family properties fall into planning use class C3.

In July 2016, we checked with Kingston Council and found that there is currently no HMO Article 4 Direction in force and no immediate plans to introduce one.

This means that you do not need planning permission for a change of use from a single-family property (use class C3) to a small HMO shared by three to six unrelated residents (use class C4), although the situation could change in the future.

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 before you start a new HMO development. 

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: 

Private Sector Housing Team
Kingston Council
Guildhall 2
High Street
Kingston upon Thames
KT1 1EU

Email: privatesectorhousing@kingston.gov.uk
Tel:      020 8547 5003
Website: www.kingston.gov.uk