Lewisham HMO Property Standards: What the Licence Really Means Once Tenants Move In

The Licence Is the Easy Bit

There is a moment with most HMOs when the project stops being about refurbishment and starts being about management.

The builders leave.

The furniture arrives.

Five bedroom doors acquire five different keys.

Then five adults start cooking, showering, moving partners in and out, filling bins, reporting repairs and testing just how much a washing machine can reasonably be expected to endure.

That is when the real HMO begins.

And in Lewisham, an HMO licence isn’t simply permission to collect rent from more people. It places the property inside a much more closely managed regulatory system.

Lewisham considers the property’s physical standards, the permitted number of occupiers, the suitability of the manager and the arrangements in place to manage the HMO. It also says all HMOs are inspected, while only a proportion of selectively licensed properties receive inspections (Lewisham Council).

That distinction tells landlords quite a lot.

A selectively licensed house needs to be properly managed.

A licensed HMO needs to be run.

The short version

If you own or manage a Lewisham HMO, you need to keep control of five things:

The clever part of HMO management isn’t avoiding every defect.

Buildings don’t cooperate with that plan.

The clever part is finding problems early, dealing with them properly and leaving a trail that shows what happened.

First check: is it actually an HMO licence you need?

Lewisham has both mandatory and additional HMO licensing.

Mandatory licensing catches HMOs with five or more people from more than one household sharing facilities.

Lewisham’s additional licensing scheme goes further. It also captures many HMOs occupied by three or four people from different households, including shared houses and flats that fall below the mandatory threshold. Certain purpose-built flats and some owner-occupier/lodger arrangements can also fall within the scheme (Lewisham Council).

This catches more properties than some landlords expect.

Three professionals sharing a house can be enough.

So can two couples.

And the number of tenancy agreements doesn’t rescue you. What matters is how the property is actually occupied.

That is the first place HMO licensing differs from selective licensing.

Lewisham’s selective scheme applies broadly to qualifying private rented homes that are not already caught by its HMO licensing schemes (Lewisham Council).

In simple terms:

• Single household rental? Think selective licensing.
• Three or more people from more than one household sharing facilities? Start asking HMO questions.

If the occupation isn’t obvious, sort that out before completing the wrong application.

Map: where selective licensing sits alongside HMO licensing

HMO licensing (mandatory and additional) applies borough-wide where occupancy qualifies. Selective licensing is ward-based. The map is here for one practical job: deciding whether a property is on the HMO route or the selective route before you apply.

Confirm the property on the Lewisham borough hub, check Lewisham HMO standards, or run the free licence checker. See also mandatory vs additional vs selective and do I need an HMO licence?.

Fees — keep these brief

Useful to know before you apply. Not a substitute for reading the conditions afterwards.

Official: HMO licensing fees · selective licensing. Wider comparison: London HMO licence cost guide.

Why an HMO licence is not just a tougher selective licence

It is tempting to think of licensing as a ladder.

Selective licence at the bottom.

HMO licence one rung higher.

That isn’t really how it works.

HMO licensing regulates a different type of property risk.

With a single-family house, the council is mainly concerned with the landlord, the condition of the home and how the tenancy is managed.

With an HMO, you add:

• multiple households,
• shared kitchens,
• shared bathrooms,
• common escape routes,
• greater wear,
• more occupant turnover,
• bedroom limits,
• communal fire precautions,
• and the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation Regulations.

That last point is important.

HMO licence conditions sit alongside the HMO Management Regulations. Lewisham’s enforcement policy expressly notes that failing to comply with those management regulations is itself a criminal offence capable of leading to a civil penalty or prosecution.

So the licence is only one layer.

Selective licensing vs HMO licensing in Lewisham

If you’re moving a house from a family let into HMO use, you haven’t simply increased the rent roll.

You’ve changed the regulatory model of the property.

The licence controls how many people can actually live there

This is one of the places landlords can get caught out surprisingly easily.

A room becomes vacant.

A couple enquire.

The room is a decent size.

The numbers work.

Except the HMO licence says the room is for one person.

Lewisham’s current HMO licence conditions include nationally prescribed bedroom minimums. A sleeping room for one person aged over ten must be at least 6.51m², while a room for two people aged over ten must be at least 10.22m². Rooms below 4.64m² cannot be used as sleeping accommodation (HMO licence conditions).

But meeting 10.22m² doesn’t automatically mean you can put a couple in it.

The council determines the maximum occupancy of individual rooms and the HMO as a whole when licensing the property.

So there are two questions:

Is the room physically large enough?

and

Does the licence actually permit that occupation?

Both need a yes.

Lewisham’s enforcement policy treats knowingly allowing more people to occupy an HMO than the licence permits as a serious licensing offence.

That makes occupancy monitoring more important than it sounds.

A partner gradually staying four nights a week and eventually moving in isn’t merely a tenancy-management wrinkle. It can change the HMO’s actual occupation.

Kitchens are not judged by whether tenants can squeeze around the toaster

HMO standards are occupancy-driven.

Lewisham’s current published standards state that a shared kitchen serving up to five people must normally be at least 6.5m², increasing to 11m² for a kitchen serving up to ten people (Lewisham HMO standards).

The council also looks at the location, layout and facilities available.

This is one of the commercial realities of HMO investing that matters before purchase.

An extra bedroom may look wonderful on the spreadsheet.

But every additional occupier puts pressure on:

• the kitchen,
• bathrooms,
• storage,
• refrigeration,
• cooking facilities,
• fire strategy,
• and communal space.

Sometimes turning the dining room into Bedroom 6 does not create a six-bedroom HMO.

It creates a five-bedroom HMO with nowhere sensible for six people to eat.

Lewisham can turn deficiencies into licence conditions

This is where the actual licence becomes more important than a generic internet checklist.

Lewisham says its HMO standards are minimum standards used when deciding suitable occupancy. If a property falls short, necessary remedial works can be added as conditions of the licence, complete with a completion timescale. The council also reserves the ability to require additional works even where a property satisfies the published minimum standards.

That means two apparently similar HMOs can end up with different jobs to complete.

One licence might require additional fire precautions.

Another might identify ventilation.

Another could require amenity improvements.

This is why the first job after receiving an HMO licence should not be filing it.

Read every page.

Then turn every property-specific condition into a dated job.

A simple tracker works:

Nothing clever.

But dramatically better than remembering three months later that “there was something about the kitchen”.

Lewisham intends to inspect HMOs

This deserves more attention than it usually gets.

Lewisham’s current enforcement policy says:

all HMOs are inspected.

By comparison, the council inspects only a proportion of selectively licensed properties.

Lewisham also says a council officer may conduct a full inspection within the licence period to consider HHSRS hazards and whether the property is being properly managed under the HMO Management Regulations (safety inspections of HMOs).

Normally the council gives 24 hours’ notice before entering.

However, Lewisham explains that statutory powers can permit entry without prior notice in certain circumstances, including where there are grounds to investigate suspected licensing offences.

There is a fairly obvious lesson here.

Don’t build your compliance strategy around receiving an inspection appointment.

Build it around owning an HMO that is ready to be inspected.

What does an HMO officer notice?

Probably not the expensive splashback you fitted in 2023.

They are rather more interested in whether the house works safely as shared accommodation.

Lewisham’s HMO inspection material places management duties around water supply, drainage, utilities, common parts, stairways, handrails and obstruction-free entrances and passageways (safety inspections of HMOs).

So walk into your own HMO occasionally as if you’ve never seen it before.

Is a bicycle blocking part of the hall?

Does a fire door actually close?

Has someone disabled a closer because it bangs?

Is there a mattress leaning against the wall downstairs?

Is the handrail loose?

Is the smoke alarm panel showing a fault?

Are bins overflowing?

Is there mould spreading behind a wardrobe?

Has somebody quietly put a microwave and kettle into a bedroom?

HMOs have a habit of evolving when nobody is looking.

That’s why management inspections matter.

Does Lewisham prescribe a six-month landlord inspection?

Yes — and this is easy to miss if you only skim the amenity standards PDF.

There is no point inventing a Lewisham HMO rule that isn’t there.

There is equally no point missing one that is.

Condition 34 of Lewisham’s published HMO Licence Conditions requires the licence holder to inspect the HMO at least every six (6) months to identify problems relating to the condition and management of the HMO. The Authority may increase the frequency if it has good reason to be concerned.

The written record must identify who carried out the inspection, the date and time, issues found and action taken. Copies must be provided within 28 days on demand.

That is the legal floor — not the management ceiling.

HMO managers also have continuing duties under the Management Regulations. Lewisham expects common parts and installations to remain in good repair and requires the property to remain properly managed.

So inspection frequency should reflect the actual risk as well as the six-month minimum.

A recently refurbished three-person professional HMO may need a different management rhythm from an eight-person property with high turnover and repeated maintenance issues.

The useful question is therefore not only:

“How infrequently am I legally allowed to visit?”

It is:

“How often do I need to visit to know this building is still being managed properly?”

For many HMOs, a documented inspection schedule is one of the easiest ways of answering that question — and of satisfying Condition 34.

The humble inspection report is more useful than it looks

An inspection report isn’t there to prove the house was perfect.

In fact, a report that says “everything OK” every time is not terribly convincing.

Real properties have defects.

A useful report says what the landlord found and what happened afterwards.

For example:

• 4 February — Minor leak beneath kitchen sink discovered.
• 5 February — Plumber instructed.
• 7 February — Flexible hose replaced. No damage to kitchen units.
• Evidence — Invoice + completion photograph.
• Closed.

That single record tells a much more useful story than:

Kitchen checked – satisfactory.

The first version demonstrates management.

The second demonstrates a pen.

Repairs: speed matters, but so does judgement

There isn’t one universal Lewisham HMO deadline for fixing every possible defect.

Nor should there be.

A loose cupboard hinge and exposed electrical conductors clearly shouldn’t share a response target.

Your management system needs to distinguish between:

• Emergency — Immediate danger or major loss of essential services.
• Urgent — Serious defect requiring rapid attendance but not necessarily an immediate emergency response.
• Routine — Normal maintenance that can reasonably be booked into a contractor schedule.

The audit trail should then show:

• when it was reported,
• who assessed it,
• what decision was made,
• when the contractor was instructed,
• when they attended,
• and when the work was completed.

The timing of the landlord’s knowledge can become just as important as the date of repair.

Some paperwork does have an actual clock attached

Lewisham’s HMO licence conditions contain specific document-production requirements.

For example, occupants must receive a written statement setting out their terms and conditions of occupation at the start of the tenancy. If Lewisham asks for that documentation, the licence holder must provide it — and evidence of how they satisfied themselves that the occupant understood their rights and responsibilities — within 28 days of demand.

The conditions also require written arrangements explaining how occupiers should report repairs, maintenance problems and emergencies, with relevant documentation producible to the council.

Where cash rent is accepted, the conditions require a written receipt within seven days, and relevant rent records can be requested by the authority within 28 days.

These are exactly the sorts of requirements that seem minor until somebody asks for the records.

Then suddenly the old letting agent’s filing system becomes very interesting indeed.

The manager’s phone number belongs in the building, not just your contacts app

Lewisham requires management details to be displayed within the HMO.

The licence conditions require securely fixed information in the common parts showing the name, address and emergency contact number of the licence holder or managing agent, including an emergency number available outside normal office hours.

Lewisham’s inspection guidance also says the landlord or manager’s name, address and telephone number should be displayed at the house.

This sounds trivial.

And compared with fire separation, it is.

But licensing inspections are rarely improved by beginning with a missing notice that costs almost nothing to put up.

Fire safety is where HMO management becomes very different from a normal let

Fire precautions in an HMO aren’t just a collection of products.

They’re a system.

Lewisham’s licence conditions require tenants to receive suitable fire-safety information at the beginning of the tenancy. This includes escape arrangements, keeping escape routes clear, keeping fire doors closed and understanding relevant alarms and firefighting equipment.

That matters because a perfectly specified fire door has limited value if somebody routinely wedges it open with a trainer.

So fire management should include periodic checks of:

• fire doors;
• closers;
• door damage;
• common escape routes;
• alarm systems;
• detector condition;
• emergency lighting where required;
• storage in communal areas; and
• any fire-safety instructions given to occupiers.

A certificate tells you what was true on the day of the test.

Management tells you what happened afterwards.

An EICR with a C2 isn’t a completed job

There is a peculiar habit in property compliance of treating a certificate as the end product.

Sometimes it is simply the beginning of the next job.

If an EICR identifies remedial work, your file should show:

EICR → defect → electrician instructed → work completed → remedial certification.

Not:

EICR → defect → silence.

The latter does an excellent job of proving when you became aware of an electrical problem.

Which may not be the evidence you hoped to preserve.

Keep electrical reports and remedial documents together.

Pest control is not solved by blaming the tenants

Lewisham’s HMO licence conditions require regular checks to keep the HMO free from infestation. Where the licence holder becomes aware of a pest issue, they must take all steps to ensure pests are eradicated within seven days.

The cause may eventually matter.

It may be tenant behaviour.

It may be defective drainage.

It may be gaps around pipework.

It may be neighbouring land.

But the immediate management question is still:

What did you do once you knew?

Keep pest-control reports.

Keep proofing recommendations.

Keep the invoice.

And if the contractor recommends a return visit, book it.

One visit proves a pest controller attended.

A closed treatment programme provides rather better evidence that the problem was managed.

Anti-social behaviour needs evidence too

HMOs can produce neighbour complaints for fairly predictable reasons.

Noise.

Bins.

Visitors.

Cars.

Smoking.

Late-night gatherings.

Lewisham’s licence conditions require written ASB procedures and say landlords and managers need to be able to demonstrate that they have taken action to deal with ASB in order to comply with their licence.

That doesn’t mean reaching for an eviction notice because somebody played music on a Friday night.

It means showing sensible management.

Log the complaint.

Ask what happened.

Speak to the occupier.

Keep correspondence.

Follow up if it continues.

Document escalation.

The audit trail should demonstrate judgement rather than panic.

Occupancy records matter more than tenancy records alone

An HMO licence regulates occupiers, not merely names on tenancy agreements.

So don’t assume your rent schedule tells you everything you need to know.

Your management records should make it easy to answer:

• Who lives there?
• Which room do they occupy?
• When did they move in?
• Is anyone else living with them?
• How many households are currently present?
• What occupancy does the licence allow?

Lewisham says the HMO manager must provide information about the number of people and households living in the house, the number in each household and the use of each room.

This is another major difference from an ordinary selectively licensed property.

If Bedroom 4 suddenly becomes occupied by two people rather than one, that may change far more than the rent collection.

Keep one proper HMO file

There is no prize for having compliance documents spread across seven different places.

A useful HMO file is boringly organised.

That is exactly what you want.

Property and licence

• HMO licence
• Current licence conditions
• Permitted number of occupants
• Permitted room occupancy
• Council correspondence
• Any property-specific works

Tenants

• Tenancy or licence agreements
• Inventories
• Room allocation
• Move-in / move-out dates
• Occupancy records
• Deposits
• Information issued at commencement

Safety

• EICR
• Electrical remedials
• Gas Safety Records
• Fire documentation
• Alarm servicing
• Emergency lighting records where applicable
• Relevant appliance testing
• EPC

Management

• Inspection reports
• Repair log
• Contractor reports
• Invoices
• Photographs
• Pest-control records
• ASB correspondence
• Waste information
• Communal cleaning records where relevant

You aren’t creating this for the sake of bureaucracy.

You’re creating it so the answer to:

“Can you send us the documents?”

is:

“Yes.”

rather than:

“Probably, once Dave gets back from holiday.”

Also useful: HMO licence documents checklist.

Selective licensing does not prepare you automatically for HMO licensing

A landlord with several selective licences may understandably think they already understand property licensing.

Mostly, yes.

But an HMO adds important operational differences.

A selectively licensed house may go several years with the same family.

An HMO can change shape every few months.

One tenant leaves.

A couple replaces them.

Someone gets a partner.

A door closer breaks.

A fridge stops working.

One occupant buys an air fryer apparently capable of powering a small aircraft.

Another moves their bike into the hall.

None of those events necessarily creates a disaster.

But together they explain why HMO management needs closer supervision.

The property is used more intensively.

The compliance system therefore has to keep up.

Planning permission is a completely separate trap

Lewisham has borough-wide Article 4 Directions affecting changes from dwellinghouse use to small HMO use.

The council says permitted development rights to convert C3 dwellinghouses into C4 HMOs have been removed across the borough, meaning planning permission is required for the relevant change of use (Article 4 on small HMOs).

This matters because:

HMO licence ≠ planning permission.

And:

planning permission ≠ HMO licence.

A landlord can obtain one and still have a problem with the other.

This is particularly important when buying an existing HMO where the seller cheerfully explains that it has “always been rented to sharers”.

Planning departments tend to prefer evidence to folklore.

More context: Article 4 HMO London · Article 4 checker.

What can happen if you get it wrong?

Lewisham’s current enforcement policy treats licensing failures seriously.

Operating a licensable HMO without a licence, knowingly exceeding the permitted occupancy or breaching licence conditions can lead to a Civil Penalty Notice of up to £40,000, or prosecution where appropriate (enforcement policy).

Breaches of the HMO Management Regulations can also lead to civil penalties or prosecution.

A significant breach of licence conditions can also cause Lewisham to consider starting proceedings to revoke the licence.

Rent Repayment Orders can cover up to 24 months’ rent for offences on or after 1 May 2026 (up to 12 months for earlier offences) under the national rules — older council pages may still quote 12 months.

And there is another 2026 development worth landlords knowing about.

Lewisham launched an intelligence-led Rogue Landlords Taskforce in August 2026. The council says the taskforce is using data, local intelligence and targeted inspections to identify suspected unlicensed properties, poor housing conditions and licensing failures (Rogue Landlords Taskforce announcement). At launch, Lewisham reported 153 enforcement notices already issued in the financial year and £160,875 in financial penalties since April.

So enforcement is no longer purely complaint-led.

That makes preventative compliance rather more attractive.

The expensive mistakes are often collections of small ones

Picture an HMO inspection.

The house isn’t falling down.

Nobody has removed the boiler.

There isn’t a bonfire in the hallway.

But:

• one fire door doesn’t close,
• the emergency contact notice has disappeared,
• Bedroom 3 now has a couple living in it,
• the electrician recommended remedial work six months ago,
• a mouse infestation has been treated once but never followed up,
• and the landlord can’t find the written fire information given to the latest tenants.

The problem is no longer one defect.

It is the picture those defects create.

A council officer may reasonably start asking whether the HMO is being actively managed.

That is the risk landlords sometimes miss.

Compliance failures don’t always arrive wearing flashing lights.

Sometimes they accumulate quietly.

The best HMO management system is not particularly glamorous

You don’t need a compliance department.

You need a repeatable process.

See it. Inspect the property and listen to tenants.

Record it. Write down the defect.

Decide it. Assess the urgency.

Assign it. Give the job to someone competent.

Prove it. Keep the report, invoice, photograph or certificate.

Close it. Confirm the issue has actually been resolved.

Then do the same thing next time.

A landlord who does that consistently is in a much stronger position than one who owns a beautiful folder of certificates but has no idea what’s currently happening in Bedroom 5.

Lewisham HMO FAQs

Final thoughts: HMOs punish casual management

HMOs can be excellent investments.

They can also be remarkably unforgiving when managed like ordinary single lets.

That’s the central difference.

A family house might have the same occupants for four years.

An HMO can change substantially in four months.

People come and go.

Partners appear.

Facilities get used harder.

Fire doors get abused.

Appliances fail.

Bins multiply.

Small repairs become big ones when nobody notices them.

Lewisham’s rules reflect that reality.

The council licenses the occupancy, sets property standards, inspects HMOs and expects the building to remain properly managed after the application has disappeared into the archives.

So don’t think of compliance as an annual certificate hunt.

Think of it as knowing what is happening inside the property.

And being able to prove what you did when something went wrong.

Because the dangerous sentence for an HMO landlord isn’t:

“Something broke.”

Something eventually will.

It is:

“We knew about that months ago.”

Useful Lewisham links

• Lewisham borough licensing hub
• Lewisham HMO standards
• Licence checker (Lewisham)
• HMO documents checklist · EICR & gas safety · Article 4 guide
• Islington selective property standards · Southwark selective guide
• Council HMO hub
• HMO Licence Conditions PDF
• Standards for licensable HMOs · standards page
• Safety inspections of HMOs
• HMO licensing fees
• Apply for a private property licence
• Additional licensing designation 2022 · Selective designation
• Private Sector Housing Enforcement Policy
• Article 4 direction on small HMOs
• Rogue Landlords Taskforce announcement (17 Aug 2026)

Need the HMO inspection-ready?

Need help with a Lewisham HMO licence, a compliance review or the certificates needed to get the property ready? HMO KIT can help identify what is missing and coordinate the next steps before the council inspection finds them for you.

This guide provides general information rather than legal advice. The requirements applying to an individual HMO depend on its occupation, configuration, planning position and the conditions attached to the actual licence. Always check the current Lewisham licence documents and legislation for the property concerned.