In March 2026 Croydon Council designated a new selective licensing scheme covering 14 of the borough's 28 wards. Two dates for its commencement were in public circulation at the same time, both published by Croydon.
The two sources
The designation notice, made under section 80 of the Housing Act 2004, states at paragraph 5 that the designation "is made on 25 March 2026 and will come into force on 1st September 2026", and at paragraph 6 that it ceases on 1 September 2031.
The council's landlord-facing web pages stated 25 September 2026 — on two separate pages.
We originally published 25 September. That was wrong, and it was wrong in the more dangerous direction.
Why the instrument wins
A designation is a legal instrument. It is what the council made, in exercise of a statutory power, following the consultation and confirmation the Act requires. A web page is somebody's summary of that instrument, rewritten whenever the site was last touched, by someone who may not have had the notice in front of them.
The scheme comes into force on the date the designation says it does. A subsequent web page cannot change that, any more than a summary of a contract changes the contract. If the council wanted a different commencement date it would have to make a different designation.
So the rule we now apply, without exception: where a council's own summary page conflicts with its own instrument, we record both and follow the instrument. The council page's version is not deleted — it is published alongside, because a landlord who reads the council's website and reaches a different answer deserves to know why.
What 24 days would have cost
Take a landlord in one of the 14 wards, letting a single-household property, who read the council's website in August 2026 and diarised 25 September.
From 1 September the designation is in force. From that date the property is unlicensed in a designated area, and the consequences do not wait for the landlord to notice:
- A criminal offence under section 95 of the Housing Act 2004 — control or management of an unlicensed house.
- A civil penalty of up to £30,000 under section 249A, which a council may impose as an alternative to prosecution.
- A rent repayment order under the Housing and Planning Act 2016, of up to twelve months' rent, claimable by the tenant or the council.
- No valid section 21 notice under section 98 while the property is unlicensed — which matters less since the Renters' Rights Act 2025 abolished section 21, but still bites on older matters.
Twenty-four days of unlicensed letting is not twenty-four days of exposure. A rent repayment order is calculated on a period of up to twelve months during which the offence was being committed, so a short unlicensed period at the start of a tenancy can support a claim substantially larger than the rent for those days. "I read it on the council's website" is not a defence the Act provides.
How this was actually caught
Not by reading Croydon's website more carefully. By reading the designation notice — and then, when a correction was proposed against our stored date, by checking the proposal against the instrument rather than against the summary we had already trusted.
We got this wrong once and defended it. The correction came from two independent first-party instruments: Croydon's own additional licensing notice under section 56 and its selective licensing notice under section 80, both quoting the same commencement. Two instruments agreeing beat one web page repeated twice.
The general lesson
A council's website is a secondary source about its own decisions. It is usually right, it is easier to read, and it is not the thing that carries legal effect. When a date matters — and with licensing the date always matters — the question is not "what does the council say" but "what does the designation say".
Our guide to reading a designation notice walks through where those dates sit in a real notice.
Croydon's position, with both sources. See the Croydon council page — the designation dates, the conflict, and the council's own links.