ivanhoeshmivanhoe

Oh my god I'm so sorry to hear of your ordeal! A friend of mine (female) was attacked walking up Grove Lane a few years back. These disgusting creatures will try it on whoever they can. I really hope they catch them for you.

I'm sorry guys, but no... the scandal is real... We COULD technically put 2 people on the tenancy and have the other 2 sublet, but that would be illegal and would mean that if the council found out, our landlord and our agent would be liable for prosecution. Neither want that. I am talking about ONE tenancy, with one estate agent. Southwark Council have reduced the number of unrelated people necessitating a HMO from 5 to 3. So any homes with 3 unrelated people living in it will basically cost a landlord a shed loads of money to maintain. Our estate agent is finding that loads of tenants are being served notices now and landlords are simply selling their homes if they're unable to fill it with a family. Our estate agent has lobbied to the countil to no avail.

cerv Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > This doesn't sound right to me, are you sure > they've understood everything correctly? I'm no > longer in a shared place but I always remember the > magic number a landlord didn't really want to hit > was 5 separate people/rooms as it was at that > point they needed to be a lot more on the ball > with fire escapes and things like that. I know of > friends living in bigger properties that only have > 4 names on the lease but actually have 5 living > there to get around it. > > * Edit - just googled and found the following on > http://www.2.southwark.gov.uk/downloads/download/2 > 951/standards_for_houses_in_multiple_occupation_hm > o > > "An HMO is required to be licensed with the Local > Authority if it is three or more storeys in height > and is occupied by 5 or more tenants, of which at > least 2 households share one or more basic > amenities including kitchen, bathroom or WC. It is > the landlord/manager?s responsibility to apply to > the Council to license a property." This guidance is from July 2015. The new regulations, which reduced the occupancy number to 3, came into force in 2016.

Oh yes sorry, I should have clarified - Southwark Council have reduced the threshold from 5 to 3 now. So we would need to be 2 people affording this beautifully large house. Which we could do (and just have 2 other tenants pay us under the table) except apparently the council are stepping up raids/prosecution, so obviously our landlord really doesn't want to risk it.

The new policy came into effect last year, but a lot of tenants are only being affected now because their tenancy is up for renewal and they're finding out that the landlord doesn't want to spend ?1000s on fireproofing the home and paying for a HMO licence. More info here: http://www.londonpropertylicensing.co.uk/southwark-council-approve-new-landlord-licensing-schemes. On the face of it, it sounds great, right? Bugger those crafty rogue landlords who supply sub-standard accommodation to tens of people living in their home. But we are a perfectly happy household with 4 working, young professionals. Our landlord understandably would rather pay NOTHING for housing a family, than the heightened costs for letting us stay there.

Hi all, I just wondered if anyone here is familiar with the (fairly) new HMO regulations put in place on shared homes in Southwark? Basically, we are 4 young professionals living in a shared house near the station. We have a fantastic landlord and a beaut of a house. It's a bit old and crumbly, but that's why we love it. However, Southwark Council, in a bid to put pressure on rogue landlords, is requiring any home with 3 or more unrelated people renting it, to be converted into some awful, fireproofed, commercial-style property that has more in common with a halls of residence than it does a family home. For the unintiated: Not only would our landlord need to pay for all this, but he would need to register our house as a HMO (House in Multiple Occupation) and would need to pay for a licence to be issued and each time the licence was up for renewal (anything from 1-5 years) would need to pay a sum PER BEDROOM and also pay for extensive fire and risk assessments to be done. And guess what.... he DOESN'T need to do ANY of this if a family moves in!!! This means that tonnes of perfectly happy shared homes are now being served notices because the landlords simply can't be arsed with the trouble/expense. In our case, our landlord doesn't want to turn his property inside out. He loves the original features, does our man. Now surely there'll be loads of empty large homes in Southwark crying out for families to rent them?? You'd have to be a fairly wealthy family to rent our home - wouldn't you just BUY if you had that money? It also means that now 1-2 bedroom properties are going to feel the squeeze and the prices for those will go up, as young professionals in Peckham, Camberwell etc are turfed out. Has anyone, landlord or tenant, been affected by this!?!?!?!