Croydon Landlord Licensing — Which Licence, How to Apply

You know you probably need a licence. You just can't work out which one.

Croydon now runs three separate property licensing schemes at the same time — selective licensing in 14 designated wards, additional HMO licensing borough-wide, and mandatory HMO licensing borough-wide — and the council's information is spread across dozens of web pages, cabinet meeting PDFs, fee tables and portal screens. The penalty for getting it wrong is a civil penalty of up to £40,000, or a Rent Repayment Order where your tenant claims back up to two years of rent.

You've probably spent an evening bouncing between council pages, trying to figure out whether your property in Thornton Heath needs a selective licence or an additional HMO licence, what "Part A" and "Part B" fees mean, and which documents the portal will ask for before it lets you submit. The answer is in there — somewhere — but nobody has put it in one place, in order.

The Croydon Licensing Route Map

This guide is a complete route map through Croydon's licensing schemes — from working out which licence your property needs to tracking the conditions for the full five-year term. It replaces the hours of council-page research with a single, step-by-step reference you can print and work through.

It is not legal advice, not a council publication, and not connected with any government body. It is an independent guide that organises the public rules into the order you need them.

Which licence? — answered in one decision tree

A single flowchart that asks four questions about your property — the number of tenants, the number of households, the ward, and any exemptions — and tells you whether you need a mandatory HMO licence (5+ persons, 2+ households, borough-wide), an additional HMO licence under the CAHMOL 2026 scheme (3–4 persons, 2+ households, borough-wide), a selective licence under the CPRPL 2026 scheme (single-household lets in the 14 designated wards), or no licence at all. No more guessing which page to start on.

The 14 selective wards, listed and explained

Addiscombe East, Addiscombe West, Bensham Manor, Broad Green, Fairfield, Norbury and Pollards Hill, Norbury Park, Selhurst, South Croydon, South Norwood, Thornton Heath, Waddon, West Thornton and Woodside. The guide explains how to check properties on a ward boundary and what happens when a ward name changes.

Every document, in the order the portal asks for it

Gas Safety Certificate, Electrical Installation Condition Report, Energy Performance Certificate, Fire Risk Assessment, dimensioned floor plan with the 1.5-metre ceiling-height exclusion rule, and every fit-and-proper-person disclosure — laid out in a document-preparation matrix so you can assemble the file before you log in. No more portal timeouts because you didn't have the EICR to hand.

Fees, Part A/B split, and every discount you can stack

The full fee structure for all three schemes — including the £800 selective fee (£480 Part A, £320 Part B), the £1,250 additional HMO fee (£750 Part A, £500 Part B), and the per-room mandatory HMO fee — with the £100 accreditation discount, £100 multi-dwelling discount and £50 EPC Band B+ discount, and what evidence you need to claim each one. The guide explains which part of the fee is non-refundable, what triggers the Part B invoice, and when you'd consider a one-year licence instead.

Licence conditions and five-year tracker

What the council expects for the full licence term: annual gas safety renewals, six-monthly property checks, tenant referencing, waste management records and anti-social-behaviour logging. The post-grant tracker gives you the dates and the paperwork, so a routine inspection or a licence renewal doesn't catch you off guard.

Enforcement: what actually happens if you let without a licence

Civil penalties under the Housing Act 2004, prosecution, Rent Repayment Orders, and why a pending application is a statutory defence — explained plainly, with the council's published enforcement policy and the evidence that protects you.

Who this is for

• Private landlords with a rented home or shared house in Croydon who need to work out whether the property needs a licence, which one, and how to apply.
• Small or accidental landlords self-managing one or two properties who want to handle the application themselves instead of paying an agent or consultancy.
• Landlords whose agent handles the application but who want an independent checklist — because the licence holder, not the agent, is legally responsible for the declarations and the ongoing conditions.

Why not just use the council's website?

The council's website is free and you should use it — you'll need to create an account on their portal to submit the application anyway. What the council doesn't give you is a single reference that puts the three schemes side by side, tells you which one applies to your property, lists the documents in the order the portal asks for them, calculates the fee after discounts, and tracks the conditions for five years. That's what this guide does.

Compared to a letting agent's licensing service (typically £199–£500 + VAT on top of the council fee), or a guided-completion consultancy at £199, this is a fraction of the cost — and you keep full control of your application and your data.

What you get

• The full guide — 14 chapters covering all three licensing schemes, the application, documents, fees, conditions and enforcement (47 pages, PDF, print-ready).
• Six printable worksheets — a ward and scheme decision worksheet, document checklist, fee and discount calculator, application receipt log, five-year compliance tracker, and agency communication log — each a standalone PDF you can print and fill in at the relevant stage.
• The dated compliance checklist — a summary of the steps, forms, fees and deadlines you can print and work through.

Both files cover the rules as at October 2026, with direct links to the council pages for rechecking.

Satisfaction guarantee

If the guide doesn't help, email [email protected] for a full refund, no time limit. No form to fill in, no questions.

Get started

Download the free checklist to see how the guide is structured. If you want the full route map — the decision tree, the document matrix, the fee worksheets and the five-year tracker — get the complete guide for .