Lambeth HMO Licence: Additional vs Mandatory and How to Tell Which You Need

You let a flat to three friends who each pay their own share of rent. In Lambeth, that property is a house in multiple occupation, and it needs an HMO licence — even though it looks and feels like an ordinary flatshare. The confusion between "tenants" and "households" is where most landlords trip up.

What Counts as an HMO in Lambeth

Under the Housing Act 2004, a household is a single person, a couple, or a family living together. Three unrelated individuals living in the same property form three households — and a property occupied by three or more people from two or more households is an HMO.

That includes house-shares, bedsits, and converted buildings with shared facilities. Children count as occupants when working out the total headcount, so a couple with a child plus two unrelated lodgers is five people from three households — enough to trigger mandatory HMO licensing.

Additional HMO Licensing (3–4 Sharers)

Lambeth's additional HMO scheme covers smaller HMOs that fall below the mandatory threshold: properties occupied by three or four people from two or more households. The scheme is borough-wide, covering all 25 wards, and runs from 9 December 2021 until 8 December 2026.

That expiry date matters. Unless the council runs a fresh consultation and issues a new designation, the additional scheme lapses automatically. Landlords with additional HMO licences should watch for renewal announcements in late 2026.

Fees are charged per habitable room at £550 each. Habitable rooms include bedrooms and living rooms used by tenants — kitchens and bathrooms are excluded. A four-bedroom flat with no separate living room would be charged for four rooms (£2,200). Add a living room that tenants use, and it becomes five rooms (£2,750).

Mandatory HMO Licensing (5+ People)

Properties with five or more people from two or more households need a mandatory HMO licence under Section 55 of the Housing Act 2004 and the 2018 Prescribed Description Order. This threshold was lowered nationally in October 2018 — before that, a mandatory licence only applied to three-storey HMOs.

The mandatory scheme runs borough-wide with no expiry date. Fees follow the same per-room model at £550 per habitable room.

Minimum room sizes apply to mandatory HMOs under the 2018 Mandatory Conditions Regulations: 6.51 m² for one person aged 10 or over, 10.22 m² for two people, and 4.64 m² for a child under 10. Rooms smaller than 4.64 m² cannot be used as sleeping accommodation at all.

The Hierarchy: Which Licence Wins

A property only needs one licence. The legal hierarchy runs: mandatory HMO first, then additional HMO, then selective. If your property qualifies as an HMO under Part 2, it is exempt from selective licensing under Part 3. You never need to hold both.

If a property currently has three sharers (additional HMO) and a fourth moves in, it stays under additional HMO licensing. But if a fifth person joins, it crosses into mandatory territory and needs a new licence application.

Section 257: Converted Flats

Buildings converted into self-contained flats whose conversion work did not comply with the building standards that applied at the time and still does not, and where fewer than two-thirds of the flats are owner-occupied, are classified as Section 257 HMOs. The freeholder or head lessee who controls the common parts must get an additional HMO licence for the whole building, separate from any individual flat licences.

Individual flat owners in a Section 257 building still need their own licence — selective or additional HMO depending on how many people live in their flat.

Next Steps

Working out which HMO licence applies — additional or mandatory — depends on an accurate headcount and household assessment. Our Lambeth landlord licensing guide includes a decision flowchart that takes you from address check through household count to the correct licence type, with the documents and fees for each.

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