To accept a huge loss on my house

[CurlyHairMare1]

I live in a semi detached house in a quiet cul de sac. I’ve spent a lot of money doing it up and making it lovely. Early this year my neighbours (the ones I’m attached to) sold their house incredibly cheaply as it needed an awful lot of work doing to it.

A man bought it to do up and rent out, I understood he had a property business so assumed he’d be the landlord.

Fast forward to now and he’s actually turned it in to an HMO. He has a number of them across the city.

I put my house on the market in Spring and I just can not sell it due to the HMO. I’ve had a number of offers accepted and they have all pulled out when they have found out what I’m attached to so I’m now declaring it up front.

Would I be unreasonable to sell my house for way under asking price just so I can get rid of it? The estate agent has suggested it would need to go for nearly 100k less to even get any kind of interest.

I’m exhausted with the whole situation.

There are property buying companies who will offer you approximately 80% of the value of the property. Pay your solicitors fees and there are no estate agents fees. Not great but maybe quicker sale and less of a loss? You could always contact and see if they would make an offer as an option? I feel for you - it's such a horrible situation.

No they’re not aware. It seems that 90% of the licensed HMOs in this area don’t have planning permission despite most of them needing it.

OP offering her house to the HMO owner doesn't really solve it though. What about other neighbours who will be living with two HMO’s.

Not saying they are all bad. I have two near to me, one no bother at all, the other a nightmare. All professional working people. The nightmare one was due to the cars, 4 residents, 4 cars, plus guests with cars, in a house with parking for 1.

Go down the more formal challenge. The council departments do ‘jump’ at councillor and MP involvement.

The council might have checked it before issuing, but not since.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly9d48lv17o for the various ways HMOs can go wrong.

Do contact your local media.

Writd to your mp immediately. Ask advice. Invite them round.

Did you miss out a response to the OP’s problem? It sounds like you’re talking about a different situation?

It’s likely to be one in the living room, one in the dining room, one in two of the bedrooms and two in one bedroom.

This is the stuff of nightmares and is happening more frequently than people realise. I'm looking into part-exchange at the moment with new build developers as I've got a difficult to sell house.

Several possible solutions above OP, so don't give up yet.

I think he’s turned it in to 3 up, 3 down

Smaller hmos come under permitted development.

Why do you want to move?

Generally there has to be communal living space i.e. a kitchen/dining room. If the tenants are ok - and what landlord wants tenants who trash the place and annoy the neighbours? - what is the problem?

There only needs to be a kitchen and a bathroom.

Not in all areas no it depends if the council has issued an Article 4 direction. Many have.

I dont know how many times I have to say this but Issuing a HMO licence and planning permission are two separate activities.

Also no councils don't always check if it has planning permission before granting a HMO licence.

They are different departments. HMO licences are about meeting a minimum standard - fire safety etc.

I live in a Hmo.
Some people work from home and never really leave the house.
You only see them occasionally collecting their takeaways from the Diliveroo guy.
I've lived in a Hmo for 7 years.
Recently more and more Indians are moving to the country.

They don't generally have cars and stay medium term in the house as the plan is usually to move the family over ASAP and get a house

R.e. selling the house. A large part of the problem is that it has been recently converted to a HMO and now the OP wants to move. Everyone will think the HMO is causing issues.

It needs to be large enough to accommodate all the residents. And most HMOs now require en suite bathroom facilities, not a joint bathroom.

I’m glad you are declaring it upfront now OP - it’s only fair on prospective buyers to know.

We do have article 4 direction in this area.

Yeah, they may then do similar or student rental accommodation?

In my experience some London boroughs they don't have an 'article 4' in place which I understand means there is no mechanism to turn down planning permission for HMOs. This makes them an open door to developers. The houses next door and opposite my DM are currently being turned from 3 bed terraced houses into 6 unit homes.

The house next door was previously a privately let HMO with a caring landlord and lovely tenants who used to visit my parents and have a chat and tea with them. DPs used to take in parcels etc.

This development is by a company that has around 50 other similar properties. They didn't fulfil their legal duty of issuing a party wall notification before work started, but there is no real redress if you don't (unless you have money and can do it quickly). They will contract to the council any day now. We've been to the planning dept, building control, planning meetings and our MP but it's no good.

My DM is in her late 80s and recently widowed and worried. There is an HMO in the next road, a resident recently damaged cars on DMs road, throwing stones and rocks at them. There was a murder in an HMO in a neighbouring road a couple of years ago ( not to mention anti-social drug dealing, excessive noise and fly tipping etc). I can only hope that DM gets good neighbours. We've fitted an alarm and a ring doorbell to help her feel safe.

I don't know that there is anything else we can do. My DM has lived there since early 1970s, it has memories of my DF and she shouldn't feel forced out.

What's your point?

Do you want everyone to live in ghettos?

When I look at a nice road in an affluent, attractive area, what I don’t think is "oh, this would be perfect with a couple of HMOs". No-one does.

People can pretend and virtue signal about it, the reality is the OP losing 100k off the value of her house.

It’s actually the opposite in many cities such as Sheffield. They try not to saturate specific areas with hmos so you can only get a licence if a certain percentage of houses within a certain radius aren’t already HMOs.