Selective Licensing: How to Check If Your Area Has a Scheme

Selective Licensing: How to Check If Your Area Has a Scheme

Check your council's website for a selective licensing page, search its public licensing register, or call the private sector housing team. Selective licensing is set street by street under Part 3 of the Housing Act 2004, there is no national list, and schemes can now be introduced without government approval.

This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Landlords should seek independent legal advice for their specific circumstances. It describes the position in England.

What selective licensing is, and why it is different

Selective licensing sits in Part 3 of the Housing Act 2004 and applies to privately rented houses that are not HMOs. Where a council designates an area, effectively every privately rented house in it needs a licence, however ordinary the letting: one family, one tenancy, no shared facilities. That is the trap. Mandatory HMO licensing is well known and turns on the property itself, five or more occupiers forming two or more households, so a landlord can reason their way to the answer, as our article on the mandatory HMO licensing threshold in England explains. Selective licensing turns on geography instead. The same house needs a licence on one side of a boundary road and none on the other, and nothing about the property or the tenancy signals which.

A designation lasts up to five years, and each licence granted under it runs for a period of up to five years under section 91 of the Act. Licences come with conditions, typically covering gas safety, references, anti social behaviour management and notification duties, and a fit and proper person test applies to the licence holder.

A licence adds a layer rather than replacing anything. The gas, electrical, deposit and written statement duties apply to every tenancy regardless of licensing, and a selective licence sits on top of them, converting several into enforceable licence conditions and adding reporting duties of its own. The practical consequence is that a licensed property is inspected and documented against a written standard, so the application is also the moment to confirm the underlying compliance file is in order, since councils commonly ask for the current gas record and electrical report with the application itself.

Why the question needs asking in 2026

Two developments make this a live check rather than a one off. First, the approval gate has gone. Until the end of 2024, a scheme covering more than 20 per cent of a council's area or of its private rented stock needed Secretary of State confirmation. The General Approval 2024, in force from 23 December 2024, removed that requirement entirely, so councils can now designate schemes of any size on their own authority, provided they consult for at least ten weeks and meet the statutory conditions. Larger borough wide schemes have become correspondingly easier to launch, and councils across England have been consulting on new designations since.

Second, the price of being caught out rose. From 1 May 2026 the Renters' Rights Act 2025 lifted the maximum civil penalty for the relevant Housing Act 2004 offences, including letting an unlicensed property, from £30,000 to £40,000, and widened who can be liable, reaching superior landlords in rent to rent arrangements. Enforcement activity is also better resourced and better informed than it was, as our article on how councils find non compliant landlords sets out.

How a scheme comes into being

A council cannot simply declare a scheme. Section 80 of the 2004 Act requires it to consider that the area meets at least one statutory gateway: low housing demand, a significant and persistent anti social behaviour problem that private landlords are failing to address, or, under the 2015 Order, an area with a high proportion of private rented property that also suffers from poor property conditions, high levels of migration, high deprivation or high crime. The council must then consult those likely to be affected for at least ten weeks, and once a designation is made it cannot come into force earlier than three months later under section 82.

Those mechanics matter practically. The consultation and the three month lead in are the window in which attentive landlords hear about a scheme, respond to it, and apply early, often at a discounted early bird fee. Landlords who miss the window meet the scheme for the first time in an enforcement letter.

How to check your area, step by step

Start with the council's website. Search the name of the local authority together with "selective licensing", and look for the private sector housing or property licensing pages. Councils publish the designation, a map or street list, the start and end dates and the fee structure. Read the boundary carefully, because schemes regularly cover named wards or streets rather than the whole district.

Check the public register next. Section 232 of the Housing Act 2004 requires every local housing authority to maintain a public register of the licences it has granted, so searching the register for your street shows whether neighbouring rented properties hold licences, a strong signal that a designation covers the area.

If the pages are unclear, ask directly. An email to the private sector housing team stating the full address and asking whether it falls within any current or proposed designation produces a written answer worth keeping. Then make the check recurring. Schemes start, end after five years, and are replaced or redesignated with different boundaries, so an annual recheck per property, and a fresh check on every purchase before exchange, is the realistic rhythm. A portfolio spread across councils needs the exercise per authority, because every council runs its own schemes on its own dates.

Selective licensing is exactly the kind of obligation that varies property by property, which is why LLCR tracks licensing status and expiry alongside certificates in each property's compliance score, and the calendar flags renewals before a licence quietly lapses. You can review a property's position with the free compliance checker.

If your area has a scheme

Apply before letting, or immediately if the property is already let, because the offence is committed by having control of or managing an unlicensed property while the designation is in force, and an application duly made is a defence while it is being determined. Fees vary significantly between councils and are commonly split into two payments across the licence term. If the property is leaving the rental market, a temporary exemption notice under section 86 can cover a period of up to three months while that happens, with one further notice possible in exceptional circumstances.

Licence conditions then become compliance obligations in their own right, because breaching a condition is itself an offence with civil penalty exposure. The conditions usually restate duties a compliant landlord already meets, gas records, references, management standards, but they convert informal good practice into terms the council can enforce directly.

Buying, inheriting or taking over a tenanted property

Licences are personal to the holder and do not transfer with the property. A buyer who completes on a tenanted house inside a designation needs their own licence from completion, however recently the seller was licensed, so the check belongs in due diligence before exchange: ask the seller directly whether the property sits in a designation and whether a licence is held, raise it through pre contract enquiries, and verify the answer against the council's own pages rather than taking the sales particulars on trust. The same applies to a landlord inheriting a tenanted property or taking one back from a rent to rent operator, where the person now in control of the letting changes even though nothing else does.

The same checking method also covers the neighbouring regime. Additional HMO licensing under Part 2 of the 2004 Act is geographic in exactly the way selective licensing is, designated area by area for smaller HMOs that mandatory licensing misses, and councils publish those designations on the same licensing pages. A landlord checking an address for selective licensing should read off the additional licensing position in the same visit, and the interaction between the two HMO schemes is covered in our article on mandatory and additional HMO licensing.

What unlicensed letting costs

The exposure stacks. Letting a property that requires a selective licence without one is an offence under section 95(1) of the Housing Act 2004, punishable on conviction by an unlimited fine, or the council can impose a civil penalty as an alternative to prosecution, up to £40,000 for conduct from 1 May 2026. The penalty applies per property, so a portfolio spread across an unnoticed designation multiplies it. The full penalty landscape is tabled in our reference article on civil penalties under the Renters' Rights Act.

Separately, the tenant or the council can apply for a rent repayment order for the unlicensed period, and the Renters' Rights Act doubled the maximum to 24 months' rent, as our article on how much a tenant can claim through a rent repayment order explains. One historic consequence has fallen away: the old rule that an unlicensed property invalidated a Section 21 notice went with Section 21 itself. What replaced it is not relief but directness, penalties and repayment orders that no longer wait for a possession claim to surface the breach.