Scope: England and Wales, verified against the legislation on 12 August 2026. Council fees are read from our own council records and carry the date each was checked. Where a cost is set by your supplier rather than published as a rate, this page says so rather than inventing a typical figure.
The short answer: the unavoidable legal costs of letting one ordinary house are smaller than most people expect — a few hundred pounds of certificates. What moves the number by an order of magnitude is whether your property needs a licence, and that depends entirely on your council and your property type.
The costs that are fixed by law
These are duties, not choices. The price varies by supplier because they are carried out by private contractors, and we deliberately publish no "typical" figure for them — we have no dataset of what engineers charge, and a made-up average is exactly the kind of number this site exists not to print.
| What | How often | Cost |
|---|
| Gas Safety Record | Annual, if there is any gas appliance | Set by your Gas Safe engineer |
| EICR | Every five years | Set by your electrician; scales with the number of circuits |
| EPC | Every ten years | Set by your assessor |
| Smoke and CO alarms | Once, then tested | Hardware cost only |
| Legionella risk assessment | Reviewed periodically | Often nothing — a competent landlord can do a simple assessment; no certificate is required |
| Deposit protection | Per tenancy | Free in the custodial schemes; insured schemes charge a fee |
What is worth saying plainly is that the legionella one is frequently sold to landlords who do not need to buy anything. It is an assessment, not a certificate.
The licence, which is where the real money is
Across the 191 mandatory HMO licence fees we hold, councils charge from £59 to £2,648, with a median of £949. That is a range of more than six times between the cheapest and dearest council we hold, for the same legal duty — which is why a national average would tell you nothing.
Three separate regimes can apply, and a property can need more than one:
Per-council figures, in each council's own words and dated, are in the HMO licence fee table. Check schemes starting soon too: a designation that commences after you buy is a cost you have not budgeted for.
Costs people forget
- Landlord insurance — not legally required, but your residential policy is typically void from the day you let, and buildings cover is usually a mortgage condition.
- Consent to let — lenders often charge a fee or move you to a different rate.
- An inventory — the cheapest document on this page and the one that decides deposit disputes.
- Planning permission, if you are converting to an HMO — separate from licensing, and having one does not give you the other.
- Void periods — council tax and utilities fall on you between tenancies.
What it costs to get wrong
The compliance costs above are small next to the penalties. Letting without a required licence is a criminal offence carrying a civil penalty of up to £30,000 and a rent repayment order of up to twelve months' rent. An unprotected deposit is one to three times the deposit. A first Right to Rent breach reaches £10,000 per occupier.
Budgeting for compliance is not the expensive decision. Skipping it is.
Run the free compliance check — five questions, no account, and it tells you which of these actually apply to your address, including whether a licence does.
Try the tool. Licensing is the cost that varies most by address and is hardest to budget from a national average. The licence fee lookup gives your council’s own published figure rather than a typical one.
Common questions
How much does it cost to become a landlord?
The unavoidable legal costs for one ordinary house are a few hundred pounds of certificates — a Gas Safety Record if there is gas, an EICR every five years, an EPC, alarms and an inventory. Each is priced by a private contractor, so we publish no typical figure. What changes the total by an order of magnitude is whether the property needs a licence. Across the 191 mandatory HMO licence fees we hold, councils charge from £59 to £2,648, median £949.
Do I have to pay for a legionella certificate?
No. There is no such thing as a legionella certificate in law. The duty is to assess the risk, and for a typical house a competent landlord can carry out and record a simple assessment themselves. It is one of the most commonly mis-sold services in the sector.
Why do you not publish typical prices for certificates?
Because we do not hold that data. Gas, electrical and EPC work is priced by private contractors and varies by region, property size and circuit count. We publish council licence fees because we read them from each council's own page and can date them; we do not publish an "average EPC cost" because we would be making it up, and a figure with no source is exactly what this site exists not to print.
Is the licence fee the biggest cost?
Usually, where one is required — the dearest mandatory HMO fee we hold is £2,648, against a few hundred pounds for the certificates. But the licence is also the cost with the largest penalty attached to skipping it: letting unlicensed is a criminal offence with a civil penalty of up to £30,000 and a rent repayment order of up to twelve months' rent.