Landlord Licence London: Do You Need One for Your Rental Property?

There's no single London-wide landlord licence. Each of the 32 London boroughs (plus the City of London) decides independently whether to introduce licensing schemes, which types, and which areas they cover. The result is a patchwork where one borough has no discretionary licensing at all and the next requires every rental property to hold one.

The Three Types of Licence

All three licensing regimes come from the Housing Act 2004:

Mandatory HMO licensing applies across all of London (and all of England) automatically. If your property houses five or more people forming two or more households who share or lack one or more basic amenities, it needs a mandatory HMO licence — no borough decision required.

Additional HMO licensing is discretionary. Boroughs that introduce it require licences for smaller shared houses: three or four people forming two or more households. Many London boroughs now run borough-wide additional schemes.

Selective licensing is also discretionary. Where introduced, it requires a licence for every privately rented property in the designated area — even single-family lets. Following the December 2024 General Approval, boroughs no longer need Secretary of State permission to cover more than 20% of their area, and several have moved to borough-wide selective schemes.

Which London Boroughs Have Licensing?

The landscape changes constantly as schemes expire, renew, or new designations come into force. As of late 2026, the East London boroughs have been particularly active:

Barking and Dagenham runs borough-wide selective licensing (6 April 2025 – 5 April 2030) and borough-wide additional HMO licensing (9 January 2025 – 8 January 2030) alongside mandatory HMO licensing. Every privately rented property in the borough needs a licence under one of the schemes unless an exemption applies.

Newham has operated one of London's longest-running borough-wide licensing schemes, covering both selective and additional HMO licensing across all wards.

Waltham Forest runs selective licensing across designated areas alongside additional HMO licensing for smaller shared houses.

Other boroughs with active schemes include Brent, Croydon, Enfield, Haringey, Hackney, Southwark, and Tower Hamlets — though the exact scope (borough-wide versus specific wards) and renewal dates vary. Boroughs like Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster have historically relied on mandatory HMO licensing alone, without introducing discretionary schemes.

The only reliable way to check your specific property is through your borough council's licensing pages or their online portal. Don't rely on third-party lookup tools alone — they can lag behind new designations.

How to Check Your Property

Start with the borough where the property is located:

1. Search "[borough name] property licensing" to find the council's licensing pages
2. Check whether the borough operates selective and/or additional HMO licensing
3. Look at the designation map or address checker to confirm your property falls within a licensing area
4. Assess your property's occupancy against the scheme thresholds (single household → selective; 3–4 people in 2+ households → additional HMO; 5+ in 2+ households → mandatory HMO)

If the property already has one type of licence, it doesn't need another — a mandatory HMO licence supersedes additional HMO, which supersedes selective. You never need two licences for the same property.

Fees Across London

Fees vary significantly between boroughs. Selective licence fees in London typically range from £500 to £1,100 per property, while HMO licences run from £1,000 to £1,800. Most boroughs use a two-part fee structure (Part A at application, Part B at issuance), and some offer compliance discounts for landlords who pass inspections or hold accreditation through schemes like the London Landlord Accreditation Scheme (LLAS) or NRLA.

For landlords with properties across multiple boroughs, each property needs its own licence from the borough where it's located. There's no cross-borough recognition.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

Under section 249A of the Housing Act 2004, a licensing civil penalty can be up to £30,000 per offence; the Renters' Rights Act 2025 also allows penalties up to £40,000 for serious, fraudulent, or persistent housing breaches. Prosecution can result in an unlimited fine. For offences committed on or after 1 May 2026, Rent Repayment Orders can cover up to 24 months of rent; earlier offences remain subject to the previous 12-month limit. Section 21 notices were abolished across England on 1 May 2026 under the Renters' Rights Act 2025.

East London boroughs have been among the most aggressive enforcers. Barking and Dagenham, Newham, and Waltham Forest all maintain active enforcement teams that proactively identify unlicensed properties using cross-referencing between tenancy deposit records, council tax data, and the licensing register.

If your rental property is in a borough with active licensing — particularly East London — the Barking and Dagenham Landlord Licensing Guide covers the full application process for one of the newest and most comprehensive borough-wide schemes.

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