Can I prevent the house I sell from becoming an HMO?

[JellyPenguin]

I'm looking to sell my house but we're in an area with a ridiculous number of HMOs which are already creating issues & new ones being converted on a regular basis. I get on well with my neighbours so would like to avoid adding to the problem for them after we've left. Can I put a clause on the sale that says it can't be converted to a HMO?

You could certainly ask for a clause to be put in but it would be easily overturned at court. Best you could do would not to sell to a landlord.

I’m no legal expert, but my understanding is that you can’t dictate what future owners do, or don’t do, with the property when it belongs to them. Sorry :(

Really? We are in a housing crisis and you want to prevent a property you will no longer own being converted to offer an affordable form of accommodation.

I have covenants on my house which say that I can't turn it into a hotel or a pub or rent rooms on a short term basis so I imagine it is possible, however you could be severely limiting its value and sellability

I think you need legal advice. I think that a restrictive covenant can require a property to be used as a single family dwelling, but from my non-legal understanding, the covenant needs to be agreed between two parties- maybe your buyer? Or the council?

I'd talk to your council housing department as well, quite a few councils seem to have policies to reduce HMO conversions and they may be able to help.

You could probably do that as a covenant - ask a solicitor, I am sure they can give you a quick answer as to whether such a thing is doable.

But it's going to cost you money to set up and probably will limit the value of your house.

How far does your goodwill to the neighbour stretch when it comes down to you losing substantial amounts of money ?

Normally an EA will know the general circumstances of potential buyers, so you could just refuse offers from developers / landlords. What you probably can't do is prevent a future owner deciding to become a landlord later on.

Edit: ...although if they buy with a mortgage, their provider may refuse permission, so avoiding cash buyers is another strategy.

Possibly…

but you are likely to devalue your house. Even if a person wants to buy as a family house they may not want the option to sell the house as a HMO later, aware they may limit their pool of buyers.

OP it’s a bad idea to get emotionally attached to property. Ultimately HMOs have to be licenced by council - let them be the arbiters of its needed/appropriate not you. Sell and move on.

If you do the viewings yourself, you can talk to prospective buyers to try to gauge what they're going to do with the property through normal small talk, rather than grilling them about their intentions. It's not a guaranteed foolproof plan but when they're looking around, if they talk about a bedroom being ideal for Jessica there's a good chance they're looking for a family home. If they start taking measurements and talking about reconfiguring and don't mention family, etc., there's a good chance they're looking to convert and/or rent it out.

If you get a "feel" for their intentions, you're free to reject offers from anyone you're suspicious about!

You’re not forced to sell to anyone, so just turn down offers from people you suspect to be HMO landlords. But I think you’re being a bit precious. You’re selling. You’re not going to be living there any more. People need HMOs as much as they need family houses; and if there are too many in your area the Council will not award an HMO licence anyway.

But after a few weeks of viewings, all of this will be moot. You’ll just want to sell!

Does your council have any policies about restricting the number of HMOs, or a licensing system? My local council requires HMOs with four or more bedrooms to be licensed and meet certain requirements (fire doors etc), and there are limits on the number of licences permitted in each street/ area. I’d suggest you contact your council in the first instance to find out what policies already exist for your area BBC and if any would apply to your street.

Even if you find the perfect buyer, who promises faithfully to keep it as a one family home. there is vanishingly little you can do to prevent any subsequent buyers doing anything.

Sorry, but there it is.

Yes, on reflection I agree with PPs that there is only so much you can do, plus you have enough to worry about with selling a house.

It's always possible you might sell to a family who turn out to be nightmare neighbours. Your current neighbours will have to decide whether or not they want to stay in the street if things get worse for them.

Do any of you live next to a HMO? We effectively do but as they are all 'family' it's all ok.
Siblings, spouses, kids, grandparents etc, 12 of them in a 4 bed!
Try living next to one and then tell me we need more!
Also someone mentioned a 'single family' covenant. We effectively have that. Is that more stringent than HMO 'family'.

A few years ago I was involved in the sale of my uncle's house. His neighbours had been very kind and helpful in his last few years and we were very grateful as he lived some distance from us.

We turned down the first offer as it was a landlord looking for yet more rooms for students at the local university. The next couple were looking for a forever home so we sold it to them, slightly smaller sum but we owed it to the neighbours.

A lot of the HMOs in my area are lived in by NHS workers, as it's near to the hospital and all they can afford on their pittance of a wage

Our neighbours didn't want to sell to a landlord in a similar situation. Their seller came round with his wife and kids, said they definitely just wanted to live there themselves - complete bullshit, it was rented out immediately.

Where I live the biggest shortage is family homes, due to greedy landlords converting houses to HMOs.

And most people don’t actually want to live in an HMO, they’d far rather have a little flat of their own.

@TiredArse when will we stop with the 'greedy landlord'! And sure plenty of people would love to live in a 'little flat of their own'. But they can't afford it! If we didn't have HMOs where would all the students live? Young professionals just starting out?
Also, councils sometimes require whole streets to become HMOs, whether it's appropriate or not. I've rented out a two bed one bath flat to the same couple for four years. Two years ago the council decided all tenanted properties to become HMOs, regardless of size. Cost me £500 for the license and doesn't fit the profile of an HMO. But I had no choice. There are unscrupulous people in every profession, but we need landlords.

Don’t be ridiculous

I've lived in them before. Because I was poor.
This is just prejudice against poor people.

I think you're being very naive about the state the country is in nowadays and also quite rude and disrespectful towards a lot of people who despite working bloody hard, aren't well off.

Who do you think is living in HMOs in 2024 in the UK? Shop workers, care assistants, hospital workers, nurses, teachers, admin staff? In years gone by, all of those people would have been able to afford to rent or buy their own property. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, that's no longer the case due to the housing crisis. It really is a crisis!

There has been a phenomenon in a nearby town of young couples coming along to view family houses on large plots, talking wistfully about the bedrooms and garden for their growing family. The later-life sellers naturally pick them above the nasty developers.

A year later and the hoardings have gone up for either a knock-down job (flats or houses) or an infill property in the large garden.

Unfortunately it is impossible to control what happens to a property after you sell it.

Where are low paid, single people supposed to live? They’ve no chance of social housing.

This exactly. As I've said previously a lot of HMOs near me are NHS workers, because the hospital is round the corner and it's all they can manage on a pittance of a wage.

Do people honestly think that one would rent a room in a house full of strangers out of choice?!