Three Tenants in Hammersmith and Fulham: Do You Need an HMO Licence?

The Three-Tenant Threshold Most Landlords Miss

National mandatory HMO licensing generally applies at five or more occupants from two or more households, subject to the purpose-built flat exception described below. That headline figure makes many landlords assume three tenants are in the clear. In Hammersmith and Fulham, they are not.

LBHF runs a borough-wide additional HMO licensing scheme alongside the national mandatory rules. Under this scheme, an ordinary shared property occupied by three or four people forming two or more separate households and sharing basic amenities needs an additional HMO licence. That applies everywhere in the borough, not just the 24 selective licensing streets.

How the Household Count Works

Three friends sharing a flat count as three separate households under the Housing Act 2004. The Act defines a household as people who are members of the same family — couples (married, civil partners, or cohabiting), parents and children, siblings, and a handful of other family relationships.

Three unrelated adults each form their own household. Even a couple plus one unrelated person creates two households with three occupants. Both scenarios cross the additional HMO licensing threshold.

The question is not how many bedrooms the property has. It is how many people live there and how many separate households they form.

What About Two Tenants?

Two unrelated tenants sharing a property form two households, but with only two occupants they do not reach the three-person threshold for additional HMO licensing. However, if the property sits on one of LBHF's 24 designated selective licensing streets, it still needs a selective licence — those streets require a licence for every privately rented property regardless of the number of occupants.

Off the 24 streets, two sharers do not need any property licence in Hammersmith and Fulham.

Purpose-Built Flats Change the Calculation

A purpose-built flat in a block of three or more self-contained flats follows slightly different rules. If three or four unrelated people share a purpose-built flat, it falls under LBHF's additional licensing scheme rather than mandatory, even though in a converted house the same occupancy might eventually push into mandatory territory at five occupants.

The takeaway: purpose-built flats with three or four sharers still need a licence in Hammersmith and Fulham. The scheme is additional HMO, and the fee is £755 (or £675 with the accredited landlord discount).

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

Operating without a licence when one is required exposes you to civil penalties of up to £40,000 per offence. Tenants can also apply to the First-tier Tribunal for a Rent Repayment Order covering up to 24 months of rent — and in a shared property with three paying tenants, each one can make a separate claim.

Section 21 no-fault evictions have been abolished under the Renters' Rights Act. Licensing does not remove a landlord's other possession-law obligations.

What You Should Do Next

Count your occupants, count the households, and check whether any of them are related by the statutory definition. If you have three or more unrelated people and any shared facilities, you almost certainly need the additional HMO licence.

The Hammersmith and Fulham Landlord Licensing Guide includes a licence-decision flowchart that walks through the occupancy test, the 24-street check, and the purpose-built flat exception in one pass.

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