Lewisham HMO Room Size and Floor Plan Requirements

If you are applying for an HMO licence in Lewisham — additional or mandatory — your floor plans and room measurements are part of the application. Getting them wrong delays the process, and rooms that fall below the minimum size cannot be counted as lettable units.

Minimum Bedroom Sizes

These are set nationally by the Licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation (Mandatory Conditions of Licences) (England) Regulations 2018, and Lewisham applies them to both additional and mandatory HMO licences:

A room smaller than 4.64 m² cannot be used as sleeping accommodation at all. The council can impose a condition on the licence limiting occupancy if any bedroom is below the applicable minimum.

The Ceiling Height Rule

Floor area where the ceiling height is below 1.5 metres does not count toward the minimum. This matters in attic conversions, mansard rooms and properties with sloping ceilings — a room that measures 7 m² at floor level but has a large area under a sloping roof may fall below 6.51 m² of usable space once the exclusion is applied.

Measure the usable area at 1.5 m ceiling height, not at floor level.

Kitchen Standards

Shared kitchens must meet minimum size and amenity requirements based on the number of occupants:

Additional per-occupant requirements:

• Worktop space: 1,500 mm × 600 mm per 5 occupants, smooth and heat-resistant
• Food storage: 0.15 m³ of dedicated cupboard space per occupant
• Sink: 1 sink and drainer per 5 occupants with cold mains drinking water and constant hot water

Microwaves count as supplementary cooking capacity but do not replace the requirement for a full oven and hob.

Bathroom and Toilet Ratios

The basic ratio is one bathroom or shower room with a toilet per five occupants. If the bathroom serves more than five people, a separate WC is required. All bathrooms must have adequate ventilation and a lock.

What Floor Plans Must Show

The MetaStreet portal requires floor plans for every HMO application. Acceptable plans show:

• All rooms labelled by use (bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, living room, hallway)
• Dimensions in square metres, measured at usable ceiling height
• Window positions
• Fire escape routes and exit paths
• Locations of smoke detectors, fire doors and alarm call points

Plans should be to scale. Hand-drawn sketches are typically rejected unless they include clear measurements. If you do not have architectural drawings, several online floor-plan tools produce portal-acceptable PDFs from room measurements.

Common Issues

Rooms advertised as doubles that are under 10.22 m² — the council will not licence a room as a double bedroom if it falls below the mandatory minimum. You either reduce the declared occupancy or make structural changes.

Converted lofts with sloping ceilings — the 1.5 m ceiling rule frequently reduces the countable area below what the landlord expected. Measure before you commit to letting the room.

Missing kitchen or bathroom details — the floor plan must show amenity locations, not just room outlines. A plan without sink, cooker and hob positions, or without the bathroom layout, will be returned for revision.

For the full HMO standards, amenity ratios and a pre-submission floor-plan checklist, the Lewisham Landlord Licensing Guide covers every room-by-room requirement across all three licensing schemes.

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