HMO licensing fees and other charges

Walsall Council introduced the charging provisions of the Housing Act 2004 in April 2014 to recover the costs of:

• the enforcement action against those private sector landlords who fail to meet basic legal requirements
• non-statutory assessment of dwellings for immigration inspections
• assessment of applications for licensable HMO properties;

We are committed to working with good landlords and will always seek to avoid service of legal notices wherever possible and appropriate.

A review has been undertaken to ensure that fees charged accurately reflect the full costs associated with the work.

HMO licence fees

Discounts for Accredited Landlords

We will apply an accreditation discount if, at the time of applying, the potential licence holder is an accredited member of:

• the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), or
• any other recognised national or regional landlord accreditation scheme

We have the final decision as to whether to recognise any scheme put forward by the applicant.

The discount will NOT be applied if your application to the accreditation scheme is still pending when you make your HMO application. We will not retrospectively apply the accreditation discount to an existing application. There is no proxy entitlement to the accreditation discount by virtue of an association between a non- accredited and an accredited member.

Mandatory HMO licensing fees and other charges starting from 1 April 2023 

There are two stages to the fee payment. You can still choose to pay the 2nd stage at the same time as the 1st stage should you wish to do so.

First stage fee payment

You must pay this at the same time as your licence application.

Second stage fee payment

We will contact you by email to confirm when the 2nd stage fee is due. You must pay this within 14 days. We must receive this:

• following the issuance of the notice of intention to issue the licence
• before the final licence is issued

If the final license is not granted, we will refund the 2nd stage payment.

No licence will be issued without payment being received of the 2nd stage fee. If you operate an HMO without a licence you may be subject to legal action by Walsall Council.

How long is my licence valid for?

HMO licences are valid for up to 5 years (and conditions will be attached to it). The decision on whether to grant the full 5 years rests solely with the Council. The Council will normally only issue a licence for a period of 1 year for all of the following cases:

• your application follows an investigation made by the Council
• your application follows a request made by the Council for you to apply
• where a property should in the opinion of the Council have been licensed previously
• there is evidence of previous poor management of a HMO
• your property in the opinion of the Council needed significant improvements before a licence could be considered

The council reserves the right to still take relevant legal action against a landlord who has failed to secure a relevant licence.

Renewal of HMO application

Licence holders renewing a licence for the same property will be charged a renewal fee, which is lower than the full HMO application licence fee, provided their application is received within time (i.e. their existing licence has not expired). If an application for renewal is received and is either incomplete or received outside the time the full application fee will apply.

Licence fee variation

There is no fee charged for a licence variation (for example, notifying of a change of manager). The licence condition still requires you to notify the council on material changes within 21 days of the change. Refer to licence conditions for details.

Fee reduction per property for a landlord / manager for additional HMOs

£70 reduction accredited landlord and £70 reduction non-accredited.

This will be applied to the 2nd stage fee (not the 1st stage).

Refunds

There will be not normally be any refunds on HMO application fees.

Any refund will be at our discretion, and is limited to:

• refunds of 1st stage fees where a duplicate application has been made for a property or
• where, on review of an application (at 1st stage), we decide that the property does not need a license at the time of application (for example, it falls under one of the exemptions)

The refund will be up to 50% of the 1st stage fee paid and 100% of any 2nd stage fee paid. We will keep the remainder of the fee to cover administrative work.