{"id":1158,"date":"2013-11-15T09:19:16","date_gmt":"2013-11-15T09:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1158"},"modified":"2013-11-15T09:19:28","modified_gmt":"2013-11-15T09:19:28","slug":"landlord-hmo-licence-refund-on-the-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/landlord-hmo-licence-refund-on-the-cards.html","title":{"rendered":"Landlord HMO Licence Refund on the Cards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the wake of three recent court judgements in the UK, the NLA believes that<br \/>\nsome local authorities may have overcharged <a href=\"http:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/video.hmo_multi_let.html#watch-demo-anchor\">HMO landlords<\/a>. As a result, the<br \/>\nNLA has written to all local authorities to warn them that they must contact<br \/>\nany landlords affected and let them know that they could be entitled to<br \/>\nrefunds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Important Court Judgements<\/strong><br \/>\nThe three judgements cited by the NLA are:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Crompton v Oxford City Council \u2013 Oxford Council tried to charge a fee<br \/>\nfor a variation in a HMO licence, but the court ruled this was unlawful.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Hemming v Westminster City Council \u2013 The court ruled that councils are<br \/>\nnot allowed to use licence fees as an excuse to make extra profits and that<br \/>\nlicence fees must be transparent and open to scrutiny.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Bristol City Council v Digs (Bristol) Ltd \u2013 Bristol Council tried to<br \/>\nforce a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/index.php?cmd=videos&amp;prod=lpm\">landlord<\/a> of a privately owned two storey maisonette to obtain an HMO<br \/>\nlicence, but the court ruled that the lower (third) storey (which only<br \/>\ncontained a hallway and entrance corridor) did not count and therefore the<br \/>\nproperty was not an HMO.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NLA Comments<\/strong><br \/>\nLicence fees are a contentious issue. There is a risk that local authorities<br \/>\nare making it unnecessarily difficult for landlords by introducing licensing,<br \/>\nalthough the councils say that by doing so they are helping to regulate the<br \/>\nsector. This could be discouraging new landlords from entering the sector,<br \/>\nwhich is bad news for tenants in overstretched areas. Many also believe that<br \/>\nlocal authorities are using license fees as an excuse to profiteer.<\/p>\n<p>Are you an HMO landlord? Do you think you have been unfairly charged? If so,<br \/>\nlet us know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the wake of three recent court judgements in the UK, the NLA believes that some local authorities may have overcharged HMO landlords. As a result, the NLA has written to all local authorities to warn them that they must &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/landlord-hmo-licence-refund-on-the-cards.html\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1161,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions\/1161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}