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Portsmouth HMO Licences To Increase By 11%

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At this month's Housing Cabinet meeting, PCC agreed to raise HMO licence fees by 11% starting in April, so if you have one coming up for renewal, make sure you apply in March to get the current price.

Why The Increase?

The argument was that the Licensing scheme needs to be self-funding, there have been no price increases since it was introduced the year before last (about 14 months ago to be accurate) and costs, which are mostly staffing, have increased significantly during that period.

Apparently Local Authorities have an exemption for many staff from the recent National Insurance taxation increases but not staff who work on the HMO licencing schemes. This new cost, coupled with increases in salary across the workforce, means that to break even the costs of licences need to increase by 11%.

One obviously accepts the Council's math though one has to wonder – when the scheme was introduced it was argued that the cost of a 5-year licence would have no impact on rents as it was less than 50p per room. At last months meeting, it was argued that it would have little impact as it was only £2 per HMO.

Anyway, we objected and as usual were ignored – the fact that you can get an identical HMO licenced in Southampton for less than half the price of a licence in Portsmouth (before the 11% increase) was brushed aside with the comment that they are probably looking at increasing their pricing too. And the reminder that when the scheme was originally introduced we requested that the scheme be revisited to ensure that compliant landlords paid less than those who were not – the response was that non-compliant landlords pay more already(when we suggested it, we did not realise the price for good landlords would not change, but new, higher prices would be introduced for those who did not tick all of the boxes of accreditation and the like). 

So what can you do? Well, as usual it is 'sell up or put up'  so if you decide not to sell up and accept that you will have to pay more, when the bill arrives I suggest you pay whatever you paid last time plus £2 in line with the Council Officers statement.....  :-) 

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About the author

Martin Silman

Martin began his landlord journey 30 years ago, while working in an international role for a global telecommunications company. Since retiring he has extended his portfolio, which he manages with his wife, but has always focussed on the ‘small student HMO’ sector preferring to offer homes in the community for small groups to the more common ‘pack them in and take the money’ mentality. He has chaired the PDPLA for the past 12 years and has overseen the Associations transition from small local self-help group to a much larger and more professional institution which is recognised and listened to nationally. Alongside his PDPLA role, he also has leadership roles in a number of other local organisations – bringing his unique perspective, driving for change and increased use of technology while respecting the history that brought us here.

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