Licensing Agent vs DIY: Applying for a Greenwich Landlord Licence Yourself

If you are choosing between hiring a licensing agent and applying for your Greenwich landlord licence yourself, the short answer depends on how many properties you have and whether you are comfortable following a structured checklist. A self-managing landlord with one or two properties in Greenwich will almost always save money by handling the application themselves, provided they have a clear preparation workflow before they touch the council portal. An agent makes sense for portfolio landlords who need five or more applications submitted simultaneously and treat the fee as a rounding error on management costs.

What a Licensing Agent Actually Does

Licensing agents and compliance consultancies in Greenwich — firms like HMO Kit and Emergency Repairs London — charge between £400 and £650 per application, excluding the council's own fees. For that money you get a site visit, metric floor plans, a document audit, a fit-and-proper person disclosure drafted on your behalf and a portal submission handled start to finish.

The service is genuinely useful when a landlord owns multiple HMOs across several boroughs, has no time to learn the rules, or needs a PAS 79 fire risk assessment arranged alongside the application. It is less useful when you own a single property, already have your gas certificate and EICR in a drawer, and the only question is which scheme applies and what the portal expects.

What DIY Actually Involves

Applying for a Greenwich landlord licence yourself means:

1. Identifying the correct scheme — selective licensing in the five designated wards (Woolwich Riverside, Woolwich Common, Shooters Hill, Plumstead Common, Plumstead Glyndon), borough-wide additional HMO licensing for smaller shared houses and Section 257 converted buildings, or mandatory HMO licensing for properties with five or more occupants.
2. Assembling the required documents — Gas Safety CP12, five-year EICR, EPC, Fire Risk Assessment for HMOs, and metric floor plans with room dimensions.
3. Preparing the fit-and-proper person disclosure — spent convictions, management arrangements, declarations about other licensing and enforcement history.
4. Paying the two-stage fee — a non-refundable Stage 1 application fee followed by a Stage 2 issuance fee once the council is satisfied.
5. Submitting through the council portal — uploading documents in the required formats and completing every field.

None of these steps is legally complex. Each one is published free on the Royal Borough of Greenwich's website. The difficulty is that the information sits across separate scheme pages, fee schedules, condition documents and consultation PDFs, and the portal charges a non-refundable fee before it even reviews your documents.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Who This Is For

• Self-managing landlords with one or two rental properties in Greenwich who want to keep costs down
• Accidental landlords who inherited or kept a property and need to understand which licence applies before spending money
• Landlords who already have valid safety certificates and just need to know the application steps and portal requirements
• Anyone who wants to understand the licensing rules rather than outsource compliance to someone whose legal liability disclaimer says it is still your responsibility

Who This Is NOT For

• Portfolio landlords with five or more HMOs across multiple boroughs who need a bulk submission service
• Overseas owners who cannot attend a property inspection or manage UK documentation
• Landlords who do not hold valid safety certificates and need a compliance consultancy to arrange surveys, remediation and applications together

The Real Risk in DIY

The risk is not that the application is difficult. The risk is that Greenwich's two-stage fee structure penalises incomplete applications. A selective licence application costs £905.75 in total; an additional HMO application starts at £527.82 per letting unit. Council officers check completeness after submission, so an incomplete application can prompt an RFI or be refused or withdrawn; the Stage 1 fee is not refunded if refused or withdrawn. An accidental landlord who submits under the wrong scheme or uploads an expired EICR may have to start again.

This is where a structured preparation guide earns its cost. The Greenwich Landlord Licensing Guide is a pre-flight system: you work through every requirement offline — scheme identification, document verification, fee calculation, fit-and-proper disclosure — so that the portal session itself is data entry from a completed worksheet, not a research exercise with money on the line.

The Bottom Line

An agent charges £400–£650 to do what a self-managing landlord can do in an afternoon with the right preparation. The council's own website has every rule, fee and form — the problem is not access but assembly. For a single property in Greenwich, a preparation guide at a fraction of one agent fee gives you the same outcome with full control over the submission. For a portfolio of HMOs across boroughs, an agent's economies of scale make more sense.

The Greenwich Landlord Licensing Guide covers all three schemes, the two-stage fees, the document requirements and the fit-and-proper test in a single dated reference with six standalone worksheets — everything a self-managing landlord needs to get the right licence first time without paying an agent to navigate a portal you could navigate yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does hiring an agent remove my legal liability for licensing?

The Housing Act 2004 can make the person having control of or managing an unlicensed licensable property liable for the offence. An agent can submit the application, but appointing one does not itself ensure that the correct licence is granted. Check the agency contract to see exactly what the agent has agreed to do.

How much does a licensing agent charge on top of the council fee?

Most Greenwich-area compliance agents charge between £400 and £650 per application, plus the council's own fee (£905.75 for selective, £527.82+ for additional HMO). Some agents bundle floor plans and fire risk assessments into the price; others charge separately. The agent fee is per application, so a landlord with two properties pays twice.

Can I start the application myself and bring in an agent later if I get stuck?

You can engage an agent before submitting without having paid the Stage 1 fee. The fee is charged at submission and is not refunded if the application is refused or withdrawn; if you need help after submitting, agree any handover with the agent and check the council portal.

What if my property is in a selective ward and also meets an HMO test?

If the property meets the HMO licensing test, apply for the applicable additional or mandatory HMO licence. The current scheme criteria in this guide treat HMO licensing and selective licensing as alternatives for a property, not two licences required for the same occupancy. The guide's property classification worksheet walks through the decision tree.

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