To have handed the new owners the no more HMO letter from the council regarding the street.

[itsmeits]

Thats it basically, new owners of down the road have been at the property this morning with the builder.
They politely introduced themselves, I welcomed them to the street and said look forward to seeing them around.

The Man then told me we won't see them as the house will be a HMO.
I asked do you not know there is an order no more HMOs on the street - did the estate agent not tell you, it's a protected area due to the amount of HMOs in the area. The 10% rule.

They both looked flabbergasted and informed me it would be a HMO.
Said I would be back in a minute, toddled back to mine printed the email (took out personal info) and handed them the information.
Pissed was not the word. I have been told I am lying and made this up. Advised they speak to councilort confirm the information.

YABU - leave them to - even though there is an order saying no more on the street.
YANBU - this information should be on the house listing when selling so potential buyers know.

I do live in an area that has quite a lot of HMOs (London one street away from a university) and I don't recognise that situation in my area.

There's the occasional student party and a bit of fly tipping down the side of my house (I think because it's not overlooked and there's no way to know who does it) but generally it's a quiet nice neighborhood. The main noise is from council run festivals they have in the park over the summer.

Could you keep your racist stereotypes to yourself please? Thanks.

Quite.

I think someone has been reading too many Tom Sharpe novels.

People say streets shouldn’t be overwhelmed with HMOs - in an ideal world no they shouldn’t. But also in an ideal world young professionals would be able to afford to buy or even rent a whole house yet they can’t. 🤷‍♀️. If people (other than landlords) can’t afford to buy the houses then what happens? Ideally the property market needs to crash so normal people can buy again but people don’t seem to want that either.

Many cities and even rural areas have a property crisis, multiple people fighting to rent or buy one house so prices keep rising. Supply and demand. In Manchester a hmo might cost 550 a month, a studio flat will be 1k plus. So people need HMOs. Hopefully if Labour gets more houses/flats built then prices will fall, but nobody wants new houses built near them either.

Only if he told the solicitor of his intentions. Solicitors aren't mind readers.

It's not young professionals in HMOs that's the problem. It's the druggies, unemployed, mental health sufferers, criminals, illegal immigrants, etc. People in "naice" areas with young professionals won't understand what streets full of HMOs with social problem tenants are like - they need to leave their naice areas and take a look at places like Blackpool.

I think that in most places outside London, it’s unusual for ‘normal’ houses (terraces/ semi-detached) to be divided into flats as there hasn’t been the same housing pressure. I live quite centrally and near a university, and there’s a couple of larger terraced houses near me that have been divided into flats, but that’s all. There are also some newer developments that are mainly purpose-built flats. So yes, I think most people will live on streets where most of the houses are owned by one person (whether as occupier or landlord).

And as people have previously said, HMOs are not the issue, it’s the concentration of HMOs in one area that can cause problems with parking, rubbish etc.

We have several in my not very long road so I very much understand people's objections to them.

The problem is that there are vast numbers of people reliant on being able to access this type of housing, and there really aren't any other options for them as far as either social housing or the private sector.

What happens to these people if there's massive resistance to the building of new HMO's? We just accept that high levels of homelessness are tolerable for low income single people, to protect the quality of life of those who are already housed?

True, but those who whistleblow will be targeted by those who lose out because of the whistle blowing.
We would all like to stand up for what's right but if the cost is losing your job and being seen as a liability for future employers it's not such an easy thing to do 😬

They need to apply for permission to turn the property into a HMO .
They will be refused so I wouldn’t worry OP

What are you talking about? It happens at all levels of council and governments. Contracts given to their mates even though their companies have no track record of being competent for the job, red tape moved aside, permits granted which should be refused, on and in it goes… then the councillor/MP leaves office and suddenly has a job in the private sector with one of those people they helped. Or bit donations come in, or someone’s family member gets a job. You really are a bit dim if you think it doesn’t happen in the UK and seem to think it is solely south africa. Very very weird.

We have a 3 bed semi and there is a house a few doors down the same style that is an HMO with SIX bedrooms! They must have split the lounge into two bedrooms and either had a loft conversion or extension.

Sure. But then that antisocial behaviour needs dealing with. And support for people with mental health issues, etc. We can’t say that HMOs are ok but only for nice people. The not so nice people still need to live somewhere and if private HMOs weren’t available then the chances are the council would have to have more hostels/sheltered accommodation and I’m not sure the behaviour would be any different. Or they’d be homeless and also causing issues.

Yes, how about the landlords of HMOs being taxed more so that they pay out of their profits towards the social costs of their residents?

And huge fines for the ones with HMOs who aren't compliant with H&S, local authority regulations, etc.

Another factor is that often the "problem" tenants aren't even local and were transported in to run down/cheaper areas, often by the local councils, or by gangmasters, etc. After all the poor Chinese cockle pickers who perished in Morecambe Bay had been living in very poor conditions in HMOs, several to a room in mattresses on the floor, certainly weren't "local" to Morecambe! Nor the newly released prisoners literally bussed into places like Morecambe and Blackpool from all over the UK.

Absolutely. I think all 2nd home owners should be taxed through the roof. HMO landlords, normal landlords, holiday home owners, the lot. While rent caps are enforced so they can’t pass the cost on, hopefully it’ll become unprofitable and prices plummet meaning that more people can buy and the govt should buy others up so they can rent stuff out at a reasonable rate as social housing,

Never going to happen. We need a rental market.

Do we need a rental market?
Yes ✅

Do we need a situation where buy to let landlords are able to outcompete potential owner occupiers and push up the price of housing so that normal people can't afford a decent place to live?
No❌

It does if there is an Article 4 Direction

For those wondering about issue with HMOs.

HMOs themswlves are not an issue. I lived in few too. It's too many HMOs in the same place which are an issue.
It creates generally transient spaces where people don't have any attachment to the area, many get tenant issues (like too many student HMOs etc) affecting the rest of the street etc. I would not buy on a street with many HMOs because I saw what they can do. Overwhelmed bins, too many people and cars streets and houses were not designed for, public transport issues, noise, etc.
There are examples up and down the country of people being stuck in hell because 15 out of 20 houses became HMO on the same street.

Limiting number of HMOs per area is actually great. You still have some, but not enough to overwhelm.

I know first hand it happens

Yep! Bought a house on a new estate with a thing that prevents them from becoming HMOs. They got bought by students parents who let their friends live in with them, still against rules but when council investigated said they said there isn’t more than 2 unrelated people living in them all, despite the fact we could clearly see that was happening.

HMOs outside of London must be very different…

HMO's have their place -theres some in the centre of my local city that are very well run - but they are city centre, no parking, aimed at people who do not have cars (there is bike storage), their neighbours are shops/businesses and other HMO's.

In my friends city however, its all student HMO's rammed into residential areas and these are a huge problem. Student behaviour is often poor, they bring cars, they don't have any investment in the local community, they know they're only there temporarily so they don't care if they are loud, leave litter everywhere, piss off the locals and make life hell for them. Fines and punishments will be dealt with by Mummy and Daddy, the Unis' barely bother with the punishments they could dole out anyway, so they get away with being utter shits.

This.
A lot of conveyancers outsource the searches and they’re notoriously slow. The couple might have economised and not had searches done.

A semicolon? Where are the related independent clauses, or the separated items in a list, that would necessitate its use?