London Borough of Lambeth
If you need help understanding the property licensing rules in Lambeth, you have come to the right place! We are experts in housing regulation and have produced this free guide to help you understand the council’s HMO licensing scheme.
If you need a licence for your rented property our support doesn’t end there. Our Landlord Suppliers Directory (view here) lists companies that offer a licence application handling service. You can also find companies offering other goods and services to help you manage your property portfolio and achieve compliance.
Licensing Requirements
There are four property licensing schemes operating in Lambeth. We will help you choose the right licence for your property:
1. Mandatory HMO licence
In Lambeth you 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.
The government have excluded 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 more complicated.
Read our free guide to mandatory HMO licensing to find out more (here).
2. Additional licence
In Lambeth you need an additional licence if your property is let as a House in Multiple Occupation that falls outside the remit of mandatory HMO licensing. It includes properties shared by three or four people who are not all related and share facilities.
The additional licensing scheme started on 9 December 2021, continues for five years and applies borough wide. You can view the public notice in the ‘At a Glance’ box on the top right of this page.
Lambeth Council have included ‘section 257 HMOs: certain converted blocks of flats’ in 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.
Read our free guide to additional licensing to find out more (here).
3. Selective licence – scheme 1
In Lambeth you need a selective licence for all private rented properties occupied by a single household or two unrelated sharers in the council wards of Knights Hill, Streatham Common & Vale, Streatham Hill East and Streatham St Leonards.
The selective licensing scheme started on 2 September 2024 and continues for five years. You can view the public notice in the ‘At a Glance’ box on the top right of this page.
4. Selective licence – scheme 2
In Lambeth you need a selective licence for all private rented properties occupied by a single household or two unrelated sharers in the council wards of Brixton Acre Lane, Brixton North, Brixton Rush Common, Brixton Windrush, Clapham Common & Abbeville, Clapham East, Clapham Park, Clapham Town, Gipsy Hill, Herne Hill & Loughborough Junction, Kennington, Myatts Field, Oval, St Martins, Stockwell East, Stockwell West & Larkhall, Streatham Hill West & Thornton, Streatham Wells and West Dulwich.
The selective licensing scheme started on 1 September 2025 and continues for five years. You can view the public notice in the ‘At a Glance’ box on the top right of this page.
You can use a postcode search facility on the council’s website to check if your property is within one of these wards.
Read our free guide to selective licensing to find out more (here).
Mandatory HMO and additional licence
Lambeth Council charge an HMO licence application fee of £520 per bedroom, which equates to £2,600 for a shared house occupied by five single people. The council did offer a fee discount for licence renewals, but that has now been removed.
There was a 20% discount for accredited landlords and members of certain professional bodies which saved £520 when licensing a five bedroom HMO. However, that discount has been removed and replaced by a fixed £75 discount which is far less generous.
Selective licence
Lambeth Council charge a selective licence application fee of £923 per property.
There is a £50 discount is the property has an EPC rating of C or above and a £75 discount for accredited landlords and members of certain professional bodies. There is also a discount if you are licensing more than one flat in a block.
The fees were correct as of September 2025 but could be subject to change in the future. You can view the HMO licensing fees on the council’s website here and the selective licensing fees here.
Lambeth Council have an online licence application system, available here.
We offer a licence application handling service in Lambeth and handle a lot of licence applications in this borough. You can find further information here. Simply complete the online enquiry form to get the process underway.
You can find other companies offering a licence application handling service in our Landlord Suppliers Directory (here).
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.
Lambeth Council have published a suite of HMO guidance covering shared houses, bedsits, self-contained converted flats and hostels which you can view on the council’s website.
The guidance covers a range of issues such as kitchen, bathroom and toilet facilities, fire precautions, heating, lighting, ventilation and room sizes.
The government have introduced absolute minimum bedroom sizes that apply to all licensed HMOs:
- 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 ask for larger minimum sizes. These minimum sizes apply throughout England to HMOs licensed under a mandatory HMO or additional licensing scheme.
A Lambeth Council report published in December 2023 said they had received 4,639 HMO licence applications, of which 622 mandatory HMO licences and 1,605 additional licences had been granted. The other applications were still being processed.
Lambeth Council keeps a public register of licensed HMOs that can be viewed on the council’s website.
In May 2019, Lambeth Council told us they thought there were about 4,000 properties that need a licence under the mandatory HMO licensing scheme. The council estimate another 5,000 HMOs need licensing under their additional licensing scheme.
Whilst we can find no estimate for the number of properties requiring a selective licence, there are likely to be tens of thousands as the licensing scheme covers most of the borough.
If you are the landlord of a licensable property, it is important you get it licensed to achieve compliance.
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.
In London, most boroughs publish information about housing prosecutions and civil financial penalties on the Mayor of London’s ‘Rogue landlord and agent checker’. You can search the database by entering a property address, landlord / agent name or by selecting the relevant borough, available here.
There are landlord accreditation schemes operated by the London Landlord Accreditation Scheme, the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) and other organisations.
Whilst we don’t have any figures for the NRLA scheme, 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 820 accredited landlords in Lambeth, which was the second highest out of all London boroughs.
January 2018: 1,042 accredited landlords
January 2019: 1,130 accredited landlords
January 2020: 1,245 accredited landlords
January 2021: 1,382 accredited landlords
January 2022: 1,861 accredited landlords
January 2023: 2,096 accredited landlords
January 2024: 2,396 accredited landlords
By January 2025 there were 2,591 accredited landlords, which is the third highest 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!
From 11 December 2023 to 4 March 2024, Lambeth Council consulted on plans to implement two selective licensing schemes. You can find more information on the council’s website.
The phase one scheme covering the council wards of Knights Hill, Streatham Common & Vale, Streatham Hill East and Streatham St. Leonards was approved at Lambeth’s Cabinet meeting on 16 May 2024 (read here – agenda item 3) and came into force on 2 September 2024.
On 4 November 2024 Lambeth’s Cabinet decided to implement a second selective licensing scheme covering most of the borough (read here – agenda item 4). Scheme implementation was initially delayed whilst the council sought government approval.
The selective licensing rules then changed so Government approval was no longer required. On 15 May 2025, Lambeth’s second selective licensing scheme was approved by the Cabinet Member for Safer Communities (read here) and came into force on 1 September 2025
In Lambeth the only two council wards not subject to selective licensing are Waterloo and South Bank and Vauxhall.
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 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.
On 7 August 2024, Lambeth Council made a non-immediate HMO Article 4 Direction covering the council wards of Streatham Common and Vale and Streatham St Leonard’s. The council consulted on the Article 4 Direction from 12 August to 7 October 2024 (read here).
The HMO Article 4 Direction was confirmed on 24 July 2025 and came into force on 11 August 2025. From that date planning permission is required to change any property from a single-family home (C3) to an HMO with up to six occupants (class C4). The changes are not retrospective and so properties converted from use class C3 to C4 under permitted development rules before that date are not affected.
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. More information can be found on the council’s website.
We understand the challenges of being a private landlord and have created a Landlord Suppliers Directory to help you find 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, need a fire risk assessment or an EPC, 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 representation at First-tier Tribunal appeals, we help to ensure your property business remains compliant. If you need assistance, please drop us a line.
You can contact the council at:
Private Sector Housing Team
Lambeth Council
Town Hall
Brixton Hill
London SW2 1RW
Email: prslicensing@lambeth.gov.uk
Tel: 020 7926 4444
Website: www.lambeth.gov.uk
Latest News
-
New HMO planning controls implemented in Streatham
-
Huge new Lambeth selective licensing scheme starts in three weeks
-
Lambeth Council decides to extend selective licensing across most of the borough
-
New landlord licensing scheme being launched in Lambeth and new HMO planning restrictions coming soon
-
Lambeth Council are consulting on plans for selective licensing across most of the borough
-
Dramatic rise in licence application fees as Lambeth’s additional licensing scheme comes into force
-
Lambeth Council’s additional licensing scheme comes into force on 9 December 2021
-
Still time to take part in Lambeth Council’s additional licensing consultation
-
Suspended prison sentence for Lambeth council tenant who illegally sub-let her home
-
Lambeth landlord ordered to pay £427,000 or face prison