Check if Your Property Needs a Licence in Hackney

Hackney runs three separate licensing schemes — mandatory HMO, additional HMO and selective — and the one your property falls under depends on how many people live there, how many households they form and which ward the property sits in. Get it wrong and you either apply for the wrong licence (forfeiting a non-refundable Part A fee of £555 to £840) or skip applying altogether and face a civil penalty of up to £40,000.

Here is the decision framework.

Step 1: Count Households, Not Tenants

The Housing Act 2004 definition of a "household" is specific. A household is a single person, a cohabiting couple (married, civil partners or living together as partners) or members of the same family (including siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, step-relations and half-relations). Anyone who does not fit those categories forms a separate household.

Three friends sharing a two-bed flat are three separate households. A couple and one unrelated lodger make two households. A family of five is one household.

This distinction drives everything below.

Step 2: Run Through the Hierarchy

Hackney's three schemes follow a strict legal hierarchy. Start at the top and work down:

Five or more occupants, two or more households, sharing amenities → Mandatory HMO licence. This is a national duty under Part 2 of the Housing Act 2004. It applies in every Hackney ward — all 21, including the four excluded from selective licensing. The standard fee is £1,400 (£840 Part A + £560 Part B).

Three or four occupants, two or more households, sharing amenities → Additional HMO licence. Hackney's borough-wide additional licensing scheme covers every ward. This catches the classic scenario: three unrelated professionals sharing a flat with a joint tenancy. Standard fee: £1,400 (£840 Part A + £560 Part B).

Single household, single tenant or two unrelated sharers → depends on the ward. If the property is in one of the 17 designated selective licensing wards, it needs a selective licence (£925: £555 Part A + £370 Part B). If it is in one of the four excluded wards — Haggerston, Hoxton East & Shoreditch, Hoxton West or Woodberry Down — no property licence is required under local schemes.

Step 3: Check Your Ward

The 17 wards covered by selective licensing are: Brownswood, Cazenove, Clissold, Dalston, De Beauvoir, Hackney Central, Hackney Downs, Hackney Wick, Homerton, King's Park, Lea Bridge, London Fields, Shacklewell, Springfield, Stamford Hill West, Stoke Newington and Victoria.

The council's address checker at propertylicensing.hackney.gov.uk can tell you which ward your property falls in. But there is a known reliability issue: the postcode lookup engine frequently fails on converted flats, split-level addresses and properties sitting on ward boundaries. A postcode that straddles a designated and an excluded ward can return the wrong result.

If your property is anywhere near a boundary between a selective ward and an excluded ward, do not rely on the postcode checker alone. Request written confirmation from the Private Sector Housing Team at [email protected] or check the official designation boundary maps.

Step 4: Rule Out Exemptions

A small number of properties are exempt from licensing even if they meet the criteria above:

• Resident landlord with two or fewer lodgers. If you live in the property as your main residence and let to no more than two lodgers (total occupancy three or fewer including you), HMO licensing does not apply. Add a third lodger and you cross into additional HMO territory.
• Public-sector and registered-provider housing. Properties managed by a local housing authority, registered social landlord or educational institution housing registered students only are exempt.
• Temporary Exemption Notice (TEN). If you are actively taking steps to remove the property from licensing — serving a valid possession notice for owner-occupation, selling to an owner-occupier or reducing occupancy below the threshold — you can apply for a TEN. It gives three months of legal protection, extendable once to six months. It is not a device for delaying a standard application while continuing to let.

Common Traps

Joint tenancy does not equal one household. Three unrelated people on a single joint tenancy still form three households. The tenancy structure is irrelevant to household counting under the Housing Act 2004.

Section 257 converted blocks. A building converted into self-contained flats that does not meet 1991 Building Regulations standards, where less than two-thirds of the flats are owner-occupied, is technically a section 257 HMO. Hackney excludes these from the additional licensing scheme. But the individual flats inside a section 257 block still need selective licences (if in a designated ward) or mandatory HMO licences (if an individual flat is let to five or more sharers).

The four excluded wards are not licensing-free. Properties in Haggerston, Hoxton East & Shoreditch, Hoxton West and Woodberry Down are excluded from selective licensing only. If a property in those wards is occupied by three or more people forming two or more households, it still needs an additional or mandatory HMO licence.

For the full application process — documents, fees, discounts, conditions and the portal steps — the Hackney Landlord Licensing guide covers everything from this determination step through to licence grant.

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