After Your Hammersmith and Fulham Property Licence Is Granted: What Comes Next

The Licence Comes With Conditions

When LBHF grants your property licence — whether mandatory HMO, additional HMO or selective — it attaches a set of conditions that run for the licence's duration. These conditions are legally binding. Breaching them can lead to a civil financial penalty or prosecution, and repeated breaches can lead to licence revocation.

The conditions vary slightly between the three schemes, but the core set applies across all of them.

Safety Certificate Maintenance

Your gas safety certificate is valid for 12 months and your EICR for five years. Keep both current; check your licence conditions for any requirement to send updated copies to the council. If either certificate expires while the property is occupied, you may breach both the licence conditions and the underlying safety regulations.

Set calendar reminders 60 days before each certificate expires. The renewal is not triggered by the licence — it follows the certificate's own cycle, which may not align with the licence grant date.

Fire Safety and Alarms

For HMO licences, the fire detection system must be maintained in working order throughout the licence period. Smoke alarms on every storey, carbon monoxide alarms near combustion appliances, and (for larger HMOs) fire doors that close fully under their own weight. The licence conditions require the landlord to test alarms at the start of each new tenancy and ensure tenants do not disable them.

Selective licence conditions are lighter on fire equipment but still require working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms as a minimum.

Room Occupancy Limits

The licence specifies the maximum number of people who may occupy each room used for sleeping. A 6.51-square-metre single bedroom or 10.22-square-metre double bedroom is permitted only where separate communal living space is provided — at least 12.5 square metres for 3–4 occupants or 16.5 square metres for 5 or more. Without separate communal living space, the minimums are 10.22 square metres for one person and 15 square metres for two. Allowing more people than the licence permits in any bedroom is overcrowding, which is both a licence breach and a separate offence.

If tenancy turnover changes the household composition — a couple replacing a single occupant in a room, or an additional person moving in — the licence holder must ensure the new arrangement still falls within the licence's occupancy limits.

Notifying the Council of Changes

The licence holder must inform LBHF's Private Sector Housing Team of any material change during the licence period. The main triggers:

• Change of property manager (a new agent taking over, or the landlord switching to self-management)
• Change in the number of occupants that would alter the licence type required
• Any criminal conviction, caution or adverse finding against the licence holder or manager
• Structural changes affecting room layout, sizes or escape routes
• Any enforcement action by another local authority against the licence holder

The notification obligation sits on the licence holder personally. If you use an agent, it is still your duty to ensure the council is notified.

The 2027 Scheme Expiry

LBHF's additional HMO licensing and selective licensing schemes both expire on 4 June 2027. Licences granted under these schemes do not automatically carry over — the council must either renew the designation or let it lapse.

If the schemes are renewed (a new five-year designation), existing licence holders will need to apply again. LBHF typically opens renewal applications around three months before expiry. Landlords with a clean compliance record through the current scheme generally face a smoother renewal process.

If LBHF does not renew or replace these schemes, the current additional and selective designations will end on 4 June 2027; mandatory HMO licensing is national law and is unaffected. The General Approval 2024 removed the prior ministerial approval limit for larger selective schemes, but it does not establish whether LBHF will renew or expand its designations.

Building Your Own Compliance System

The licence conditions read like a checklist because they function as one. The most reliable way to stay compliant is to maintain a simple tracking system: certificate expiry dates, inspection schedules, notification deadlines, and tenancy changeover checks.

The Hammersmith and Fulham Landlord Licensing Guide includes a compliance calendar and condition-by-condition tracker covering all three LBHF schemes, designed to run alongside the licence for its full duration.

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