Additional HMO licensing in Lewisham

What the designation says

Lewisham operates a borough-wide additional licensing scheme, introduced on 22 April 2022 and running for at least five years. It covers smaller houses in multiple occupation that fall outside the national mandatory regime: properties let to three or more people who are not from one household and who share facilities such as a kitchen or bathroom. Mandatory licensing continues to apply separately to HMOs of five or more people. Because Lewisham also runs near borough-wide selective licensing from 1 July 2024, almost every private let in the borough now needs a licence of one kind or another, and a landlord should establish which scheme catches a given property before applying. Letting a licensable HMO without a licence carries a civil penalty of up to £30,000 or prosecution, and exposes the landlord to a rent repayment order. A SECOND ADDITIONAL DESIGNATION APPEARS TO EXIST. Lewisham's committee record (lewisham.moderngov.co.uk, issue 18356) records "the designation of an additional licensing scheme for Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) above commercial premises in the whole of the Council's area" — a different scope from the borough-wide small-HMO scheme described above, not a restatement of it. Its commencement and duration are not yet established here. A landlord letting an HMO above a shop should treat licensing as likely to apply and confirm directly with Lewisham. We record both rather than replacing one with the other, because a narrower designation existing alongside a wider one is not a correction to the wider one.

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.

Lewisham's own licensing page →