Ealing Council has opened a consultation on a new borough-wide additional licensing scheme for smaller HMOs, with the proposed five-year designation due to start in April 2027 if approved.
The consultation covers shared homes occupied by three or four people from more than one household – a group that sits outside the national mandatory licensing scheme for larger HMOs. Ealing says the current scheme ends on 31 March 2027 and is now being reviewed before ministers or landlords can assume it will simply roll over unchanged.
For landlords, the timing matters now because the consultation runs until 24 September 2026 and could shape licensing conditions, inspection activity and future compliance costs across one of London’s biggest rental boroughs. Owners of smaller shared homes have a narrow window to challenge or support the council’s case before the next scheme is decided.
Ealing sets out hazard and enforcement case
The council said inspectors found 4,890 housing hazards during visits to more than 900 HMOs over the past two years, with around two in three inspected properties showing hazards that needed attention. It also recorded 3,649 antisocial behaviour incidents linked to known HMO properties between April 2021 and April 2026.
Since April 2025, Ealing said it has issued 28 civil penalties for unlicensed HMOs and brought 56 unlicensed properties into the licensing system. The authority also pointed to fire safety risks, overcrowding, disrepair, waste issues and poor management as reasons for keeping extra controls in place.
Louise Brett, deputy leader of Ealing Council and cabinet member for safe and genuinely affordable homes, said too many shared homes still contained serious hazards and poor management, adding that the consultation would help shape how standards are enforced across the borough.
What the next scheme would cover
If approved, the new scheme would continue to cover smaller HMOs with three or four occupiers from more than one household. Ealing says licensing would help it inspect properties, support compliant landlords and act against owners who fail to meet legal standards.
The council is also leaning on licensing as part of a wider enforcement strategy that includes tackling illegal eviction and harassment, investigating unlicensed homes and working with the police and London Fire Brigade on housing-related antisocial behaviour.
This follows Landlord Knowledge’s coverage of Greenwich’s latest landlord licensing consultation, which showed how councils are continuing to widen local control of shared housing even after the Renters’ Rights Act shifted much of the wider policy debate. Landlords with HMOs in multiple boroughs are increasingly dealing with a patchwork of local rules rather than a single London-wide standard.
That broader pattern matters because borough-by-borough licensing expansion can turn compliance into an admin problem as much as a legal one. Landlords who assume one borough’s approach will mirror another’s risk missing consultation deadlines, licence triggers or local conditions. In that sense, Ealing’s move is not an isolated change but part of a wider tightening trend that also includes recent large-scale licensing proposals in Slough.
Landlords can review the council’s evidence and consultation material through Ealing’s public consultation notice.
What this means for landlords
- If you own smaller shared homes in Ealing: check whether your properties fall into the three-or-four-person HMO category that would stay inside the scheme.
- Watch for: any changes to licence conditions, inspection commitments or fee structures before the final cabinet decision.
- If you operate across several boroughs: review each council separately rather than assuming one licensing model fits all.
- Use the consultation window: landlords who think the council’s evidence is weak or the conditions are too broad need to respond before 24 September.
- Bottom line: Ealing is signalling that smaller HMOs will remain under close scrutiny well beyond 2027.
Editor’s view
Local licensing is no longer a side issue for HMO landlords in London. The bigger risk now is not just paying for a licence – it is being caught by steadily tougher local enforcement while trying to manage different rules across different boroughs.
Author: Editorial Team – UK landlord & buy-to-let news, policy, and finance
Published: 29 July 2026
Sources: Ealing Council
Related reading: Greenwich opens 18-ward landlord licensing consult as councils widen HMO rules
