Selective licensing in Wales: why there is none, and what to check instead

An English landlord buying in Wales asks a reasonable question: which Welsh councils operate selective licensing? The answer is unusual enough to be worth a page.

What our records say

Across the 22 Welsh councils we track, we have confirmed 0 selective licensing schemes. Not a small number — none.

Now the honest part, because it matters more than the headline. "We have confirmed none" is not the same as "there are none." Of those 22 councils:

• a small number are recorded as evidenced negatives — we read the council’s own material and it says no selective scheme applies;
• for the rest we have not established a position, and their pages say exactly that rather than rendering a negative.

An absence of information is not evidence of absence. A list that quietly reports "no scheme" for a council nobody checked is how a landlord ends up letting unlicensed, and we will not publish one. Check your council’s own page before relying on this.

Why Wales looks like this

Selective licensing under section 80 of the Housing Act 2004 is legally available in Wales — the Act extends to England and Wales, and nothing repealed it for Welsh councils. So the absence is a matter of practice, not of power.

The most plausible reason is that Wales already has the thing selective licensing was invented to deliver. Selective licensing exists to bring ordinary private lets, not just HMOs, under a registration-and-fit-person regime in a defined area. Since 2015, Rent Smart Wales has done that nationally: every landlord registered, every self-managing landlord licensed and trained, for the whole country rather than a designated ward.

A Welsh council considering selective licensing would be adding a local scheme on top of a national one that already registers the same landlords. English councils have no such national scheme, which is why they keep designating.

What to check instead

1. Rent Smart Wales — registration for every landlord, plus a licence if you manage the property yourself. Not optional and not local.
2. Additional HMO licensing — 10 of the 22 Welsh councils operate one, which is a far higher rate than England. See HMO licensing in Wales.
3. Mandatory HMO licensing — national, five or more occupiers in two or more households.

The practical consequence: an English landlord who checks "is there selective licensing here?" and stops has asked the wrong question in Wales. The regime that will catch them is Rent Smart Wales, and it applies from day one everywhere.

If a Welsh council does designate

It would be made under the same section 80 and follow the same shape as an English one — a defined area, a fixed duration of up to five years, consultation before designation. How to read a designation notice applies unchanged, and our weekly checks would pick it up.

Information tool, not legal advice.