Landlord licensing in Blackpool

Required for any HMO let to 5 or more people forming 2+ households who share facilities.

Blackpool operates a selective licensing scheme covering the eight inner wards of Bloomfield, Brunswick, Claremont, Talbot, Tyldesley, Warbreck, Waterloo and Victoria, taking in roughly 11,000 privately rented properties. The scheme began on 1 April 2025, when applications opened, and landlords in the designated area were required to apply by 1 October 2025. It runs for five years. Within those wards every privately rented home needs a licence regardless of how many people occupy it, subject to the usual exemptions, so an ordinary flat or a house let to a single household is caught as well as shared housing. The standard fee for a single dwelling is £772 for the whole five-year period. The council states that the scheme generates no profit and that fee income is returned to running it and supporting landlords. Letting an unlicensed property inside a designated ward is a criminal offence carrying a civil penalty of up to £30,000 or prosecution, and exposes the landlord to a rent repayment order.

Areas: Bloomfield, Brunswick, Claremont, Talbot, Tyldesley, Warbreck, Waterloo and Victoria wards

Scheme runs until: 31 March 2030

Blackpool does not currently operate an additional licensing scheme. The council states plainly that additional licensing is not in operation. An earlier central-area scheme, which ran alongside selective licensing, has ended. Smaller shared houses let to three or four people forming two or more households are therefore outside HMO licensing in Blackpool unless they sit within the inner-area selective licensing designation, which covers every privately rented home in its eight wards whatever its size. Elsewhere only the national mandatory regime applies: a licence is required where a property is let to five or more people forming two or more households who share a kitchen, bathroom or toilet.