Environmental Health officers from Coventry's Property Licensing and Housing Enforcement team investigating a tenant complaint that occupants of a property had been left without gas or electricity discovered that the property was in fact an unlicensed HMO.

Coventry council says that, after an illegal eviction investigation by its housing enforcement team, 2 local landlords have been issued with formal cautions. both landlords were said to have served their tenants with "incorrect paperwork" instructing the tenants to vacate their homes.

Wandsworth Council in London says it is to carry out a review of the feasibility of introducing selective licensing of single household private rented homes and additional licensing of smaller multi occupancy properties in the borough.

Manchester City Council is asking private rented sector landlords and members of the public to give their views on proposals for an expansion of selective licensing of private rented properties in the city.

The tenant rented a 6 bedroom property in Leamington Spa through a letting agent but then rented rooms out to 8 sub tenants (thus becoming their landlord). The situation was discovered when the property was inspected by officers from Warwick District Council - following a complaint from one of the residents - who found serious safety and disrepair issues at the property in February 2022.

Ealing council has been given approval by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to designate a new selective licensing scheme which will commence on 3rd January 2023 across 12 wards of the borough.

Acting on information provided by Thames Valley Police, Slough council housing regulation officers executed a warrant at a suspected unlicensed house in multiple occupation (HMO) in January 2021. Weeks before, the owner of the property had told the council that the property was not rented out and was owner occupied.

Walsall council approved the designation of an additional licensing scheme for smaller HMO properties in October 2021 and the scheme went live on 1st September 2022.

The scheme covers HMO properties in the 4 borough wards of Pleck, Palfrey, Paddocks and St Matthews and the council says landlords with properties in those areas should have applied for their licences by August 31st this year.

The selective licence scheme in Greenwich went live on 1st October so technically, any landlord who has not already applied for a licence is committing an offence but it has been pointed out that the licence application system only went live "just a few days before the scheme started" thus making it difficult for many landlords to apply for licences before the go live date of the scheme.

In March of this year we reported on a case concerning an appeal from a First Tier Tribunal (FTT) decision on occupation of a property (in Camden) by property guardians, the HMO status of such a property and the application to such a property of rent repayment orders. That decision in turn has been appealed from the Upper Tier Tribunal (UTT) to the Court of Appeal where a hearing is yet to take place.