Havering HMO Rules: Signed, But Not In Force Until 2027

Havering Council has sealed a borough-wide planning control that would force every new house in multiple occupation to apply for planning permission. It signed the order on 20 August 2026. The order itself proposes that it comes into force on 7 September 2027.

That gap is the story. For the next twelve months and more, the loophole the council says it wants to close stays open.

The council’s own evidence puts a number on what is exposed in the meantime. Havering has 10,574 detached houses. Of those, 9,610 sit in an area where they can still be turned into a six-person HMO with no planning application at all.

The eight-week public consultation is open now and closes at 5pm on Friday 16 October 2026.

What is actually being proposed

An Article 4 Direction is the tool councils use to withdraw a national permitted development right. Here, the right being withdrawn is the one that lets an owner change a family home (planning Use Class C3) into a small HMO for three to six people (Use Class C4) without asking the council.

The draft Direction (London Borough of Havering, sealed 20 August 2026) covers “the whole area of the London Borough of Havering”. It is a non-immediate direction, and its wording is specific about timing:

The Article 4 Direction is proposed to come into force on 07/09/2027, no sooner than 12 months from the date of publication of this notification, subject to the consideration of consultation comments received, the views of the Secretary of State and subsequent confirmation by the Council.

The confirmation block on the sealed document is blank. It has been made, not confirmed.

If it is confirmed and takes effect, the council would then be able to judge a new HMO against planning policy, including:

• the quality of the accommodation and whether the facilities are adequate
• the need for family-sized homes in the borough
• over-concentration of HMOs in one area
• antisocial behaviour and effects on local services
• parking and transport impacts

None of those tests apply to a permitted conversion today.

Why the current rules leave detached houses out

Havering already has two HMO Article 4 Directions. Both were confirmed on 3 November 2015 and came into force on 13 July 2016.

• Direction 1 covered four wards on the 2015 boundaries and removed the right for any type of dwelling.
• Direction 2 covered the rest of the borough, but only for flats, terraced houses and semi-detached houses.

The practical effect is that a detached house in the Direction 2 area can become a small HMO without permission. The 2022 ward boundary review then moved the lines under the old Directions, which the council has had to patch with an explanatory note.

The council’s evidence report is unusually blunt about how that is working out in practice. Annex 2 lists 22 enforcement cases. In one, on a road in Rainham, the case officer recorded that the property had six bedrooms with en-suites and would have been refused permission because there was “no living space internally whatsoever”, then wrote:

the A4 direction’s weakness is being exposed time and time again with the purchase and loft/rear extension to many detached dwellings, and the C4 use remains a permitted change.

The cases cluster heavily in the south of the borough. Of the 22, most fall in Rainham and Wennington, South Hornchurch and Beam Park, including four separate addresses on one Rainham road. Several are recorded with the same outcome: lawful, no breach, licensed for six households.

Where the HMOs are

There were 314 licensed HMOs in Havering in June 2026. Of those, 281 hold a mandatory licence and 33 hold an additional licence. Additional licensing for smaller HMOs of three or four people only became a legal requirement in the borough on 18 March 2026, so the second figure is still filling up.

The council also counted HMO-related complaints recorded by its public protection team between 2 January 2024 and 16 February 2026.

Source: Havering HMO Article 4 Direction Evidence, July 2026, Tables 4 and 5.

The report says the five wards with the highest HMO density account for around 40% of recorded complaints, and makes the point that the other 60% come from everywhere else, which is its argument for going borough-wide rather than extending Direction 1.

Two cautions on those figures, both visible in the document itself. The report gives Heaton’s complaint rate as 44.4 per 1,000 residents in its table and 40.4 in the text a few pages later, and it prints Havering-atte-Bower’s population as 887,205, which is plainly a typing error. The council also labels its complaints-per-HMO calculation as “purely for discussion purposes” and warns that an average hides the fact that a handful of properties may generate most of the complaints.

Havering is late to this

Of the 32 other London boroughs, 19 have introduced or started a borough-wide HMO Article 4 Direction and four have one covering part of their area. Nine have none, and the report describes those as mostly inner London or south-west London boroughs unlike Havering.

Every borough in east London already has one. Redbridge went borough-wide in April 2019. Barking and Dagenham confirmed theirs in 2012. Bexley’s came into force in September 2017. The report also notes that no borough anywhere in London splits its Direction by property type the way Havering’s does.

Just over the boundary, Brentwood, Epping Forest and Thurrock have none. Basildon is introducing one across the rest of its borough, having already made an immediate Direction in two wards.

Licensing is not the same thing

Two separate systems apply, and the consultation only concerns one of them.

• Planning controls whether a property may be used as an HMO at all, and how many people may live there. This is what the Article 4 Direction changes.
• Licensing controls safety, condition and management standards. Every HMO in Havering now needs a licence of some kind.

Three licensing schemes run in the borough. Mandatory licensing covers five or more people from two or more households, and has applied across England since October 2018. Additional licensing covers three or four people and has applied borough-wide since March 2026. Selective licensing covers all privately rented homes in seven wards, also from March 2026: Beam Park, Harold Wood, Rainham and Wennington, Rush Green and Crowlands, Squirrels Heath, St Albans and St Edwards. Selective licensing is not specific to HMOs.

What it means for you

If you live next to a house being converted. Until the Direction takes effect, a conversion of a detached house to a six-person HMO in the Direction 2 area is very likely to be lawful, and the council’s enforcement records show officers repeatedly reaching that conclusion. What you can still report is a property operating without the licence it needs, or breaching a planning condition. The council’s private rented property licensing pages set out which licence a property needs.

If you are a landlord or thinking of converting. The permitted development route is proposed to close on 7 September 2027, subject to confirmation. After that, an application would be judged against Havering Local Plan Policy 8, which asks for an original property of at least 120 square metres, no more than 10% of the properties in a street as HMOs, no more than two adjacent HMOs, adequate refuse storage inside the site, communal space large enough for everyone living there at once, and compliance with Havering’s parking standards.

If you want to respond. The consultation runs to 5pm on Friday 16 October 2026. Email developmentplanning@havering.gov.uk with “Article 4 Direction Consultation” in the subject line, or write to the Development Planning Team, London Borough of Havering, Town Hall, Main Road, Romford RM1 3BD. The consultation page carries the draft Direction, the evidence report and the equalities impact assessment.

Council Leader Councillor Keith Prince AM said in the council’s announcement that tackling HMOs was a priority in its First 100 Days Plan, and that the Direction “would give the Council greater ability to consider HMO applications through the planning process”. The council’s release did not mention the 2027 start date.

We could not check individual planning application references for this story. Havering’s public planning register at development.havering.gov.uk was returning a gateway error, and the council’s committee search was refusing requests, so everything above comes from the consultation documents themselves.

Sources

• New proposed planning rules for HMOs in Havering, Havering Council, 21 August 2026
• HMO Article 4 Direction Consultation, Havering Council
• Draft HMO Article 4 Direction (PDF), sealed 20 August 2026
• HMO Article 4 Direction Evidence Report (PDF), July 2026

More on planning in the borough: Romford planning news and Romford house prices.