Havering Selective Licensing Wards: The 7 Areas That Need a Licence (2026–2031)

The Seven Designated Wards

Havering's Selective Licensing Scheme 2 took effect on 18 March 2026 and runs until 17 March 2031. It applies to privately rented homes in seven of the borough's 20 wards:

1. Beam Park — covers the regeneration area around Beam Park station and the southern stretch toward the A1306
2. Harold Wood — the area around Harold Wood station and extending toward Ardleigh Green
3. Rainham and Wennington — from Rainham village through to Wennington, including the areas south of the A1306
4. Rush Green and Crowlands — the area between Rush Green Road and Crowlands, north of Dagenham
5. Squirrels Heath — centred around Squirrels Heath Lane between Ardleigh Green and Gidea Park
6. St Albans — the area around St Albans Avenue, between Romford town centre and Rush Green
7. St Edwards — covering the area around St Edwards Way and parts of central Romford

Properties in the other 13 wards (such as Elm Park, Emerson Park, Cranham, Upminster, South Hornchurch, and Mawneys) are not covered by selective licensing, though they still fall under the borough-wide additional or mandatory HMO schemes if the occupancy meets those thresholds.

Why Address-Level Verification Matters

Postcodes in outer East London routinely straddle ward boundaries. Two properties sharing the same postcode on opposite sides of a street can fall in different wards — one requiring a selective licence, the other outside the selective designation, though HMO licensing may still apply.

Havering's online Property Licensing Portal includes an address lookup that maps individual properties to their statutory ward under the post-May 2022 boundary definitions. That's the only reliable way to confirm whether selective licensing applies.

The 2022 Boundary Change

Ward boundaries across Havering were redrawn in May 2022. The 2026–2031 selective licensing scheme uses these new ward boundaries, not the old ones. This creates a specific trap: if a letting agent or previous documentation confirmed your property was outside a licensing area before 2022, that confirmation may be wrong under the current boundaries.

The earlier selective scheme (January 2021 to January 2026) covered only Brooklands and Romford Town under the pre-2022 ward structure. Properties that were outside those two wards might now sit within one of the seven designated wards after the boundary changes.

What Selective Licensing Covers

Selective licensing targets non-HMO private rentals — properties let to a single person, a couple, a single family, or up to two unrelated tenants. If the property has three or more tenants from two or more households sharing facilities, it falls under additional or mandatory HMO licensing instead, regardless of ward.

The standard selective licence fee is £950, split into two parts: a £570 non-refundable Part A application fee and a £380 Part B licence grant fee. Accredited landlords can claim a £100 discount on Part B, and properties with an EPC rating of C or higher qualify for an additional £75 discount.

What to Do if Your Property Is in a Designated Ward

Check your ward first using the portal's address lookup. If the property falls within one of the seven designated wards, you need a selective licence unless it already qualifies as an HMO (in which case, you need an HMO licence instead).

The Havering Landlord Licensing guide covers the ward verification process, the full application workflow, the documents you need to upload, and the fee discounts available to keep costs down.

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