Selective licensing in County Durham

What the designation says

County Durham operates a selective licensing scheme that has been in place since April 2022 and runs for five years, to March 2027. It covers 103 Lower Super Output Areas across four separate designations, taking in around 29,000 properties — roughly 42% of the county's private rented stock. Within a designated area every privately rented home needs a licence regardless of how many people occupy it. That has a particular consequence for shared housing: any house in multiple occupation inside a designated area needs a licence whatever its size, so the landlord of an HMO with fewer than five tenants needs a selective licence even though the property sits below the national mandatory threshold. Because the designations are drawn at Lower Super Output Area level rather than by ward, a landlord should check a specific address against the council's published map rather than assume from the town or postcode. The council is considering whether to continue the scheme beyond March 2027; a replacement would be smaller, covering an estimated 20,000 properties or about 27% of the county. Letting an unlicensed property inside a designated area is a criminal offence carrying a civil penalty of up to £30,000 or prosecution, and exposes the landlord to a rent repayment order.

What this means for a landlord

A licence must be in place before the property is let, not applied for afterwards. Operating unlicensed in a designated area is a criminal offence: a civil penalty of up to £30,000 per offence, a rent repayment order of up to twelve months' rent, and a section 21 notice that cannot be served while the property is unlicensed. Mandatory HMO licensing applies separately and everywhere, wherever a property is let to five or more people forming two or more households.

County Durham's own licensing page →