Tower Hamlets Licence Application Rejected: Missing Documents and Fees

Why Tower Hamlets Rejects Licence Applications

An HMO licence application in Tower Hamlets is classified as "duly made" only when every required document, every completed declaration, and the Part A fee have been received and validated by the council. If anything is missing, unreadable, or incomplete, the application fails validation and is not accepted.

Common reasons for rejection:

• Missing safety certificates — no current Gas Safety Certificate, no valid EICR, or an expired EPC
• Unreadable floor plans — plans that are not to scale, lack metric room dimensions, or do not show ceiling heights and fire safety equipment
• Incomplete fit and proper declarations — blank or partial statutory declarations about criminal history and housing law compliance
• Wrong scheme selected — submitting for a mandatory HMO licence when the occupancy only triggers additional licensing, or vice versa
• Part A fee not paid — the application is not considered submitted until the processing fee clears

A rejected application does not give you the "duly made" protection that shields you from prosecution for operating without a licence. Until the council accepts the application, you are an unlicensed landlord.

Missing Document Charges

Tower Hamlets does not just reject incomplete applications — it charges a fee for missing documents. The missing document charge is added to your Part B fee when documents are submitted late or incomplete:

These charges are cumulative. If you submit without a Gas Safety Certificate and a floor plan, that is two missing document charges — £225 for a mandatory HMO or £315 for an additional HMO. On top of a base fee that already runs to £977 (mandatory) or £1,323 (additional), these penalties add up fast.

Floor Plan Corrections

If the floor plans you supply are inaccurate or not drawn to scale, Tower Hamlets offers an in-house plan preparation service at £40 per hour. The total charge is £40 multiplied by the hours spent on the work.

The cheaper option: get the floor plans right before you submit. Measure every room in metres, note ceiling heights (space below 1.53 m does not count toward usable floor area), mark fire doors, smoke alarms, and emergency lighting, and ensure the plan is clearly legible when uploaded to the portal.

How to Fix a Rejected Application

If your application is rejected, you need to:

1. Obtain or renew the missing document
2. Start a new application on the portal (your previous draft may have been deleted by the 90-day auto-deletion timer)
3. Upload all documents, including the ones that were previously accepted
4. Pay the Part A fee again — a rejected application's fee is not transferred to a new submission

The council does not hold partial submissions. Every new application starts from zero.

How to Avoid Rejection

The single most effective step: do not open the portal until every document is in hand. Specifically:

• Gas Safety Certificate (CP12) — dated within the last 12 months
• EICR — valid, no C1 or C2 defects
• EPC — minimum Grade E
• Fire Risk Assessment
• Scaled floor plans with metric measurements

Check each certificate against the council's requirements before uploading. The EICR must show a "satisfactory" outcome with no outstanding C1 or C2 codes. The floor plan must show individual room areas in square metres, ceiling heights, and the location of fire safety installations.

If you are not confident your documents are complete, our Tower Hamlets Landlord Licensing Guide includes a pre-submission checklist that maps every council requirement to the specific document, format, and validity period — so you can verify completeness before you start the portal and avoid the missing document fees entirely.

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