When does a house share become an HMO and why does it matter?

It is very easy to mix up a shared house with an HMO but there are differences.

Both look the same with a shared kitchen, toilets, bathrooms and separate bedrooms for each tenant. But legally they must be operated by a landlord or letting agent in a very different way - particularly when it comes to safety.

What is a shared house?

It’s a property where a group of friends or workmates live together and share their lives in social spaces and also pay for all the shared facilities such as gas, electricity, TV licence and broadband.

A shared house may also have a lounge; it means the tenants in the house are socialising together.

Shared houses are covered by relatively loose health and safety legislation but must be fitted with smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and also have a gas safety certificate for the boiler.

But as well as the legal requirement to be electrically and structurally safe and ‘fit for human habitation’ that’s about it. Most shared houses are usually rented through a joint tenancy contract where all the tenants are ‘jointly and severally’ responsible for paying the rent as a group, not individually.

However, if the ‘shared house’ is rented out by at least 3 people who are not from 1 ‘household’ (for example a family) it becomes an HMO.

What is an HMO?

Houses of Multiple Occupation or HMOs are a different kettle of fish to a shared house. HMOs may well be ‘shared’ by people even if they all have access to a kitchen and communal toilets/showers.

An HMO isn’t just where tenants rent rooms usually on a weekly basis or where few, if any of the people living in the property will have known each other prior to moving in.

The legal definition is this; if a property is rented out by three or more people who are not from one household (like family) then it’s an HMO. If it’s shared in this way by five or more people then it’s called a ‘large HMO’.

In England and Wales all large HMOs must be licenced by the local authority and meet minimum standards of fire safety (smoke alarms and exterior fire stairs, for example) depending on the size of the property. Smaller HMOs often need licences too, but it depends on the local council.

If you’re living in a shared house like this but it doesn’t have a licence (check with your council) then it could be an illegal HMO and therefore a dangerous place to live. Licenced HMOs are supposed to have:

  • A list pinned to a wall which details all the contact numbers to call should the property need repairs or an emergency occurs. This is usually the landlord or letting agent’s details.
  • Rooms that are no less than the statutory minimum size (i.e. the landlord isn’t cramming people dangerously into small rooms).Room sizes are determined by the local authority. But the range is between 4.64 sq m and 10.22 sq m depending on the age and number of people living in each room.
  • Any gas appliances and pipes must have a current Gas Safety Certificate.
  • Adequate fire safety provision
  • HMOs are considered to be more likely to suffer a fire and therefore fire safety rules for them are much tighter than shared houses. This means they must have fire doors and also facilities to help people escape a fire (like exterior stairs) along with fire blankets and extinguishers.
  • Also, doors must feature certain types of lock and the property must feature maintained and regularly checked smoke and carbon monoxide alarms.

    If you think you’re living in a poorly-managed or illegal HMO then contact your local council’s trading standards team.

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    Remember the information provided in this article is for information purposes only and should not be considered as advice.

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