Government's plans to tighten the health and safety regulation of dwellings, and improve landlord management of their properties through licensing moved ahead a further step with passing of new regulations at the end of February.

New powers have been passed which implement the mandatory licensing of houses in multiple occupation.  

The Licensing and Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation Regulations 2006 set out the scope of mandatory licensing for HMOs.  As announced when the Act was introduced into Parliament in 2003, licensing will initially, and as standard, apply to those HMOs that comprise 3 or more storeys and are occupied by 5 or more occupiers in 2 or more households.  The regulations also allow local authorities to introduce special provisions so that other classes of HMO can be included in a particular licensing scheme if the local authority can demonstrate that there is a need for additional control.

Selective licensing rules were also introduced by an additional statutory instrument.  These allow local authorities to extend licensing to all rented property in a particular local authority area suffering or likely to suffer from low housing demand or where there is a persistent problem caused by anti-social behaviour.  The regulations also specify the national minimum amenity standards acceptable for licensed HMOs.

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