Which Licence Do I Need in Havering? Selective vs Additional vs Mandatory HMO

Why Getting the Scheme Right Matters

Havering's Part A application fee — the non-refundable processing charge you pay when you submit — is £570 for a selective licence, £840 for an additional HMO licence, and starts at £1,063 for a mandatory HMO licence. Apply under the wrong scheme and you lose that fee. The council won't transfer it to the correct application.

The borough runs three licensing schemes simultaneously, and a single property can only hold one licence. The schemes form a hierarchy: mandatory HMO overrides additional HMO, which overrides selective. Your job is to work out which one applies before you pay anything.

The Four-Step Classification Test

Step 1: Count Occupants and Households

List every person living in the property as their only or main residence. Then count how many separate households they form. A household is a single person, a couple (married, civil partners, or cohabiting), or members of the same family living together. Three unrelated sharers count as three separate households. A couple plus one unrelated tenant is two households.

Step 2: Check for Shared Facilities

Do occupants from different households share a kitchen, bathroom, or toilet? If they do, the property is likely an HMO.

Step 3: Apply the Thresholds

• Five or more people from two or more households sharing facilities → Mandatory HMO licence. This applies borough-wide across all 20 wards, regardless of location.
• Three or four people from two or more households sharing facilities → Additional HMO licence under Scheme 3. Also borough-wide.
• Everyone else — a single person, a couple, a family, or up to two unrelated occupants who don't meet HMO criteria → go to Step 4.

Step 4: Check the Ward

Non-HMO properties only need a selective licence if they're in one of seven designated wards:

1. Beam Park
2. Harold Wood
3. Rainham and Wennington
4. Rush Green and Crowlands
5. Squirrels Heath
6. St Albans
7. St Edwards

If the property is in one of the other 13 wards and doesn't qualify as an HMO, no licence is currently required under local schemes.

Common Mistakes That Cost Money

Counting occupants wrong. A property let to a couple and one unrelated tenant, with the landlord living elsewhere and the occupants sharing facilities, has three people from two households — that's an additional HMO, not a selective. Treating it as a single-family let and applying for a selective licence forfeits the £570 Part A fee.

Relying on postcodes. Postcodes in outer London frequently straddle ward boundaries. Two houses sharing a postcode but sitting on opposite sides of a street can fall in different wards. Use Havering's Property Licensing Portal address lookup to verify the exact ward — a postcode search alone is legally insufficient.

Ignoring occupancy changes. If you grant a selective licence and a tenant moves out, replaced by sharers who push the occupancy above the HMO threshold, the selective licence becomes void. You need a new application under the correct HMO scheme.

When No Licence Is Needed

Certain properties are exempt regardless of location and occupancy:

• Properties managed by a local authority, registered social housing provider, police, fire, or NHS trust
• Student accommodation managed by a recognised university under an approved code of practice
• Properties occupied by the owner alongside no more than two adult lodgers (resident landlord exemption)
• Dwellings let exclusively to immediate family with no commercial rent
• Properties subject to a council Management Order

Attempting to restructure tenancies to fake an exempt category is a criminal offence under Section 238 of the Housing Act 2004.

Get the Full Decision Workflow

The Havering Landlord Licensing guide includes the complete classification test with worked examples, the ward verification process, and a Section 257 converted-building check for flats that many landlords overlook.

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