• Home
  • About
  • Clinic
  • Training
  • Eco Landlords
  • Landlord Law

The Landlord Law Blog

From landlord and tenant lawyer Tessa Shepperson

  • Home
  • Posts
  • News & comment
  • Cases
  • Tenants
    • Penalties for breaching tenancy rules
    • 15 Places for tenant help
  • Clinic
  • Podcasts
    • Interview
    • Surgery
  • Series
    • Analysis
    • should law and justice be free
    • HMO Basics
    • Tenancy Agreements 33 days
    • Airbnb
    • Grounds for Eviction
    • The Deregulation Act Explained
    • Tips

Can this simple idea solve the problem of unhealthy rabbit hutch HMOs?

December 8, 2020 by Tessa Shepperson 2 Comments

HMO - overcrowded houseThere are several types of HMO but the type we tend to think of when we hear the term ‘HMO’, is where people rent their own room and share parts of a property with other ‘households’ (ie people who are not family members).

They are increasingly popular with both tenants and with landlords:

Why HMOs are popular with tenants:

They are popular with tenants largely because they are affordable.  However, they can also be pleasant places to live, if the rooms are attractive and well maintained and the other occupants are congenial.  

Indeed they can be preferable to a single, eg ‘studio’ flat as sharing with others means you are less likely to be lonely (one of the big problems of modern life). 

Why HMOs are popular with Landlords:

HMOs are popular with landlords as they allow them to earn more money from their investment.  

For example, in a Guardian article by YMCA CEO Alan Fraser he explains that as Housing Benefit pays out per bedroom, rather than by floor space, landlords are encouraged to chop up family homes into smaller and smaller spaces to rent out as HMO rooms.

This way, a property which would rent at £674.99 if rented out to a family, will earn its owner £1746.78 a month if some of the rooms are chopped up to increase the number of bedrooms to six which are rented out to single people.

There is now a whole industry telling landlords how to do this.  So long as the bedrooms are above the minimum bedroom size, the authorities will allow it and the benefits office will pay out.

The Problem:

However, houses, where the income potential is maxed out in this way, can be deeply unpleasant places to live, with little shared living space other than a small kitchen (and maybe a scruffy garden).  They can also be unhealthy with damp and mould often rife and can create ideal breeding grounds diseases such as COVID 19.

We, the taxpayers, are all paying for this.  As Fraser says in his article:

The ballooning housing benefit bill has not been caused by social tenants making fraudulent claims, or by social landlords milking the system. It has been caused by private landlords using the taxpayer to artificially inflate their investment returns.

A solution?

However, Fraser has a solution.  We should, he suggests, link housing benefit payments to floor space rather than to bedrooms. 

This would then mean that the landlord would get the same income when a property was rented to a family as if it were rented to six HMO tenants.  They would also get more income if that family were housed in a more spacious property.

Were this to happen, it would probably result in the rapid conversion of HMOs back to family homes as they are considerably less bother to manage plus the landlord does not have the expense of getting an HMO license.

Those properties which remain HMOs would have less incentive to cram in so many people which would hopefully mean more shared communal space for residents. Making them pleasanter and healthier places to live.

At the stroke of an administrative pen (says Fraser), a whole investment strategy built on exploiting the system would be undermined, and the housing benefit bill could be more effectively controlled. It would also incentivise councils and housing associations to reverse the recent trend in social housing and start to build more spacious homes once again. And perhaps most important of all, it could drive improvements in the safety of tenants in the private rented sector in our post-pandemic world.

It sounds like a good plan.  But will it ever happen?  

Despite the problems associated with rabbit hutch HMOs, it can’t be denied that they do take more people off the street.  So as long as we have a problem with homelessness and an urgent need to find rooms for single people there will, I suspect, be little incentive to change the current system. 

What do you think?

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Filed Under: News and comment

Scroll down for the comments

Landlord Law for Landlords

Are you a landlord, unsure how to manage your properties in these uncertain times?  My Landlord Law service can help you in this crisis by providing online help and guidance and giving you one to one advice in the members' forum area.

>> Find out more about Landlord Law.


IMPORTANT: Please check the date of the post above - remember, if it is an old post, the law may have changed since it was written.

You should always get independent legal advice before taking any action.

Notes on comments:

For personal landlord and tenant related problems, please use our >> Blog Clinic.
Note that we do not publish all comments, please >> click here to read our terms of use and comments policy. Comments close after three months.

Keep up with the news on Landlord Law blog!

To get posts sent direct to your email in box click here

About Tessa Shepperson

Tessa is a specialist landlord & tenant solicitor and the creator of this site! She is a director of Landlord Law Services which now hosts Landlord Law and other services for landlords and property professionals.

« Landlord Law Blog Roundup from 23rd November
Tessa Shepperson Newsround #175 »

Comments

  1. Peter Jackson says

    December 9, 2020 at 6:56 PM

    More space per person = fewer people housed in the same space. What does Fraser think should happen to the people who no longer have homes after the change he is suggesting?
    It sounds like a crap plan.

    P.S. I don’t own any HMOs, never have done and don’t plan to.

    Reply
  2. David says

    December 18, 2020 at 6:03 PM

    Its ridiculous. Is Fraser just another commentator lamenting the loss of the family unit. The fact is that whatever landlords do, the same number of individuals will be looking for individual accommodation. His plan offers no solution to how to house them. Where does he think they will go? Perhaps back to their families?

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

“Interesting posts on residential landlord & tenant law and practice - in England & Wales UK”

Subscribe to the Landlord Law Blog by email

Never miss another post!

Choose whether you want to get
>> daily updates or just the
>> weekly roundups

You will also get a FREE Ebook!

If you are new to the blog >> click here

Get Your Free Ebook:

Click to get your Free Ebook

>> Click Here for Your Free Copy

Featured Post

Coronavirus

Landlords and the Coronavirus Emergency – keeping records

Tessa’s Podcast

The Landlord and Lawyer Podcast

Worried about Insurance?

Landlord Law Insurance Mini-Course

Some of our Other Services:

Disclaimer

The purpose of this blog is to provide information, comment and discussion.

Although Tessa, or guest bloggers, may from time to time, give helpful comments to readers' questions, these can only be based on the information given by the reader in his or her comment, which may not contain all material facts.

Any comments or suggestions provided by Tessa or any guest bloggers should not, therefore be relied upon as a substitute for legal advice from a qualified lawyer regarding any actual legal issue or dispute.

Nothing on this website should be construed as legal advice or perceived as creating a lawyer-client relationship (apart from the Fast Track block clinic service - so far as the questioners only are concerned).

Please also note that any opinion expressed by a guest blogger is his or hers alone, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tessa Shepperson, or the other writers on this blog.

Cookies

You can find out more about our use of 'cookies' on this website here.

Associated sites

Landlord Law Services
Tenant Law
Eco Landlords
Your Law Store

Legal

Landlord Law Blog is © 2006 – 2020 Tessa Shepperson.

Note that Tessa is an introducer for Alan Boswell Insurance Brokers and will get a commission from sales made via links on this website.

© 2006–2021 Tessa Shepperson | Rainmaker Platform | Contact Page | Log in

This website or its third-party tools use cookies which are necessary to its functioning and required to improve your experience. By clicking the consent button, you agree to allow the site to use, collect and/or store cookies.
I accept