St Helens Council has issued civil penalties totalling £35,000 after finding that a five-person house in multiple occupation was operating without a licence and had management breaches.
The council split the action into a £10,000 penalty for operating an unlicensed HMO and a £25,000 penalty under the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation Regulations. It said the landlord had been given opportunities to apply for the statutory licence before the notices were issued.
Owners of shared homes in the borough need to check the licensing position before taking in additional occupiers or continuing an arrangement that has changed in practice. The cost of getting the classification wrong can extend beyond the licence fee, particularly where the council identifies separate management failures.
Two penalties came from one five-person HMO
The enforcement action concerned a shared house accommodating five people. Mandatory HMO licensing can apply to properties occupied by five or more people who form more than one household and share facilities, although landlords should check the facts of their own property and any local additional licensing designation.
St Helens said the £10,000 notice related to the absence of the required HMO licence. The larger £25,000 notice concerned breaches of the management regulations, which set duties around common parts, amenities, safety measures and day-to-day upkeep in qualifying shared homes.
The announcement is an enforcement outcome, not a new licensing scheme or a change to the statutory test. It does, however, show why a landlord should not treat a licence application as the only task once a property falls within the HMO regime.
Management standards were assessed separately
HMO management duties can run alongside licensing requirements. A valid licence does not remove the need to maintain the property, keep common areas safe and meet the conditions that apply to shared accommodation; equally, a landlord without a licence can face action for the underlying management problems as well as the missing permission.
This follows Landlord Knowledge’s report on St Helens’ borough-wide HMO Article 4 consultation, which concerned planning controls rather than the licensing rules used in this case. Landlord Knowledge’s coverage of a Lincoln HMO penalty also showed that enforcement cases often turn on a combination of property condition, safety management and licensing evidence.
Landlords should keep a current record of occupants, household composition, inspections, repairs and safety checks. Those records do not decide whether a property needs a licence, but they can help establish that the management duties are being met and can expose gaps before a council visit does.
Planning proposals are a separate issue
The council said its action sits alongside proposals to require planning permission for changing a family home into a small HMO of up to six residents. That proposal is separate from the civil penalties and should not be treated as a rule already in force until the council has completed the formal process.
The authority’s website carries its housing enforcement information. Landlords with a shared property should use the council’s live guidance and designation maps, rather than assume that a planning position answers the separate HMO licensing question.
What this means for landlords
- If you let a shared home: check the number of occupiers, households and shared facilities against the mandatory and local licensing tests.
- Watch for: management failings in communal areas, repair records, fire precautions and amenities, which can create separate enforcement exposure.
- Bottom line: the £35,000 total shows that an unlicensed HMO can lead to more than one civil penalty where management duties are also breached.
Editor’s view
The strongest lesson in this case is the split between licensing and management. A landlord who only asks whether a licence is needed can miss the wider set of duties that an inspecting officer will review once the door is open.
Author: Editorial Team – UK landlord & buy-to-let news, policy, and finance
Published: 29 September 2026
Sources: St Helens Council
Related reading: St Helens opens borough-wide HMO Article 4 consult
