Hackney Selective Licensing Wards 2026: Full List and Boundary Check

Which Wards Are Covered?

Hackney's selective licensing scheme came into force on 1 May 2026 and runs until 30 April 2031. It applies to single-household lets and properties rented to two unrelated sharers in 17 of the borough's 21 wards.

The 17 designated wards are:

1. Brownswood
2. Cazenove
3. Clissold
4. Dalston
5. De Beauvoir
6. Hackney Central
7. Hackney Downs
8. Hackney Wick
9. Homerton
10. King's Park
11. Lea Bridge
12. London Fields
13. Shacklewell
14. Springfield
15. Stamford Hill West
16. Stoke Newington
17. Victoria

If your single-let or two-sharer property falls within any of these wards, you need a selective licence. The standard fee is £925 (£555 Part A, £370 Part B).

The Four Excluded Wards

Four wards are not covered by the selective scheme:

• Haggerston
• Hoxton East & Shoreditch
• Hoxton West
• Woodberry Down

A single-household let in one of these wards does not need any property licence under the local schemes. However, if the property is shared by three or more people from two or more households, it still needs an additional or mandatory HMO licence regardless of which ward it sits in — both HMO schemes are borough-wide.

Why the Boundary Matters

The difference between being inside or outside the selective designation is binary: inside, you need a £925 licence; outside, you need nothing (for a single let). That makes the ward boundary a high-stakes line, and it is not always straightforward to identify.

Postcodes in Hackney do not always map neatly to ward boundaries. A single postcode can straddle two wards, and the council's own address checker has an inherent error rate at boundary edges. Properties near the border between a selective ward and one of the four excluded wards are particularly vulnerable.

How to Verify Your Property's Ward

The council's online tool at hackney.gov.uk is a reasonable first check, but if your property is near a boundary, it is not definitive protection against a penalty for unlicensed letting. For certainty:

1. Check the address against the council's designation map (available on the Hackney consultation pages)
2. If the result is ambiguous, email [email protected] and request written confirmation of your property's ward and licensing status
3. Keep that written confirmation on file — it is your evidence that you took reasonable steps to verify

The Bigger Picture

Selective licensing is only one of three schemes operating in Hackney. Even in excluded wards, any property with three or more occupants from separate households triggers the borough-wide additional HMO licence (£1,400). And any property with five or more occupants from two or more households needs a mandatory HMO licence anywhere in the borough.

The Hackney landlord licensing guide walks through the full decision framework — selective, additional and mandatory — along with the application process, fees, discounts, and a dated compliance checklist.

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