Havering Landlord Licensing Guide vs Hiring a Licensing Consultant

If you are deciding between a step-by-step licensing guide and paying a licensing consultant to handle your Havering application, the short answer is this: a guide costs a fraction of the price and you keep full control of your application, your data and your portal account — but you do the work yourself. A consultant costs £300–£500 on top of the council fee and submits the application for you, but they need your personal documents and formal authority-to-act documentation, and legal liability still sits with you as the property owner.

For most self-managing landlords with one or two properties in Havering, the guide is the better option. Here is why, and when a consultant might still make sense.

Side-by-Side Comparison

What a Guide Actually Gives You

A step-by-step guide walks you through the decision of which licence your property needs — selective (qualifying non-HMO lets in seven wards), additional HMO (borough-wide, 3–4 persons from two or more households who share facilities), or mandatory HMO (five or more persons from two or more households who share facilities) — and then takes you through the application in the order Havering's portal asks for it.

The Landlord Licensing in Havering guide covers all three schemes in one document. It includes a ward and scheme decision worksheet, a document preparation checklist with certificate references and expiry dates, a fee calculator with discount routes (£100 off Part B with accreditation, £75 off selective and additional HMO Part B with EPC C+), a fit and proper person declaration reference, a compliance tracker for the five-year licence term, and a communication log for council correspondence.

You are submitting the application yourself, which means you see exactly what the council sees and you can respond directly to any queries without waiting for a consultant to relay messages.

What a Consultant Actually Does

A licensing consultant — typically a lettings agency compliance team or a specialist firm — collects your documents, checks which scheme applies, fills in the portal forms and submits the application with formal authority-to-act documentation. Romford-based letting agents charge around £240 including VAT for this service, and specialist consultants charge £300–£500 depending on the property type and how many documents need preparing.

The consultant does not assume legal responsibility for the property. If the application is submitted under the wrong scheme, the non-refundable Part A fee (£570 for selective, £840 for additional HMO) is lost and the liability falls on you. A consultant with Havering-specific experience will get the scheme right, but not every consultant knows the difference between Havering's selective wards and its borough-wide additional scheme — the two designations overlap in the seven selective wards, and a three-person house share in Rush Green needs an additional HMO licence, not a selective one.

Who a Guide Is For

• Private landlords with one or two properties who are comfortable using an online portal and uploading PDF documents
• Landlords who already have their Gas Safety Certificate, EICR, EPC and floor plans and just need to know the order and the fees
• Self-managing landlords who want to understand the licence conditions themselves, not have someone else summarise them
• Landlords with properties in multiple Havering wards who need to check each property against the selective boundary — a guide covers all three schemes for the price of one consultant engagement
• Anyone who does not want to hand over personal compliance documents to a third party

Who a Guide Is NOT For

• Landlords who genuinely cannot use an online portal and would rather pay someone to handle the technology
• Portfolio landlords with ten or more properties across multiple boroughs who need a managed compliance service at scale
• Property owners facing an active enforcement investigation where a solicitor or specialist is already involved
• Anyone who needs the consultant to arrange a Gas Safety inspection, EICR or floor plan drawing — a guide assumes those documents exist or tells you where to get them, but does not arrange them

The Real Tradeoff

The practical tradeoff is time against money. A guide saves you £280–£480 compared to a consultant and puts you through the process in one or two hours. A consultant saves you that time but costs several hundred pounds, and you still need to collect every document yourself — the consultant cannot make your gas engineer produce a certificate any faster.

For Havering specifically, there is an added wrinkle: three licensing schemes running simultaneously means the scheme-selection step is where most errors happen. A guide with a structured decision tree forces you to answer the ward, occupancy and household questions yourself and land on the right scheme. A consultant makes that call for you — but if they get it wrong, the non-refundable Part A fee is gone and the re-application starts from scratch.

Most self-managing landlords in Havering are better served by a guide. The application itself is not complex once you know which scheme applies and which documents the portal expects. The complexity is in the decision of which scheme — and that is exactly what a structured guide resolves before you open the portal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use a guide and still ask a consultant if I get stuck?

Yes. A guide does not lock you into a DIY-only path. If you hit a question the guide does not answer — for example, whether a specific converted building qualifies as a Section 257 HMO — you can contact Havering's licensing team directly or pay for a one-off consultation. The guide gives you the framework; a targeted call to the council costs nothing.

Does a consultant guarantee the application will be approved?

No. A consultant submits the application, but the council makes the approval decision based on the property's compliance and the applicant's fit and proper person status. If the property fails an inspection or the applicant has relevant criminal convictions, the licence can be refused regardless of who submitted the form.

What if I apply under the wrong scheme — can I get a refund on the Part A fee?

No. Havering's Part A application fees are non-refundable once the application is submitted — £570 for selective, £840 for additional HMO, £1,063 for mandatory HMO. This applies whether you submit yourself or a consultant submits on your behalf. Getting the scheme right before you pay is the single highest-value step in the process.

Is the guide specific to Havering or does it cover other London boroughs?

The Landlord Licensing in Havering guide covers Havering's three licensing schemes — selective (seven wards), additional HMO (borough-wide) and mandatory HMO (borough-wide) — with Havering's fees, wards, portal instructions and licence conditions. It does not cover other boroughs. The national HMO standards that apply everywhere in England are covered separately.

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