HMO License renewal process?

[nosherlock]

My student son is renting an HMO property direct from a landlord (no agency involved).The landlord inherited the property as a going concern and has always seemed a corner-cutter on the admin (for example, no guarantors or credit checks requested) as if he's either still learning the ropes of being a landlord or just doesn't like to spend money on third party services.

Question: The tenants have never seen an electric safety certificate, but did check the HMO license when they moved in last September. It expired last week, and the local authority website shows that it hasn't yet been renewed. It may just be a delay in updating the register, but they haven't had any visits from anyone doing checks. If the renewal process was underway should there have been a visit from an electrician by now?

Thankfully, they don't have gas.

He could contact the HMO person at the Local Authority, however:

1. Some LAs are very slow at issuing HMO licenses. We applied for a renewal with an up to date set of paperwork and are still waiting four months later. Even the letting agency gave up and allowed us to renew the current tenancy agreement with proof of application, rather than the license itself. Possibly illegal but if they did not there would be a whole set of empty properties and a whole lot of tenants made homeless.
2. EiCRs last up to five years so there is a good chance the cert used for the last license is still valid.
3. EiCRs can be expensive to obtain. The electrics need to be up to current standards. Given standards change regularly, probably fewer than 10% of your neighbours have electrics that would pass an EiCR. (One specific issue I had recently was a change around isolating bathroom fans. A choice of either replacing a fairly recent fuse board to something with isolation built in or tearing apart the bathroom ceiling. Expensive either way. )
4. Unless there are obvious problems like fuses that keep tripping, or bare wires, uninspected electrical installations are probably less risky than gas. Which is why they don’t need to be inspected annually.
5. If the landlord has failed to apply he could be fined something like £30,000. If he has just bought he may not have great cash flow. Is this a battle you want to fight.

How long does he intend to stay? With increased regulation there is a divide between landlords who keep up with it all and those who stick their heads in the sand. Trouble is that many in the first group increasingly feel that renting property is not worth the hassle so are selling up, leading to a shortage. So rents rise or you rent from an amateur.