A recent case reported in Legal Action Magazine serves to remind us that tenants who rent a room in a shared house and change rooms, are also starting a completely new tenancy. Pilakoutas v. Schofield, Sheffield County Court, 22 May 2009 Here Professor Pitakoutas was a landlord by purchase of a house in multiple occupation. …
HMOs and planning law As reported on this blog previously, landlords and landlords organisations were extremely unhappy at the changes which were brought in to the planning laws on 6 April this year by the last government. Suspected to have been introduced largely because of problems in one minister’s constituency with ‘studentification’, Labour’s new rules…
For the new version of this series >> Click here This is day 10 of my 31 days of tips on tenancy agreements series. To see the rest of the series click here. Describing the property correctly in the tenancy agreement This sounds obvious but you need to be careful. If you get a court order…
For the new version of this series >> Click here This is day 5 of my 31 days of tips on tenancy agreements series. To see the rest of the series click here. Are you renting out a room in a shared house or the whole property? There are two ways you can rent out a…
New rules for HMO properties As announced earlier this year (and reported by me here) the government has now changed the planning rules to require all HMO properties to get planning permission. These new rules came into force yesterday (6 April 2010). This brings the definition of HMO for the purposes of planning into line…
HMO landlords be warned – the government has announced that the law is to be changed from 6 April, introducing a new planning category for HMOs (the definition to be based on that set out in the Housing Act 2004): we have decided to amend the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) order 1987 as…
Oxford leads the way with HMO licensing
HMO Licensing in Oxford Oxford City Council looks to be the first local authority to introduce blanket licensing for HMOs in its area, under new powers granted in April. The new scheme will apply to every HMO in the city (apart from a few self contained flats) and will come into force on 25 October….
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