Compliance
An HMO licence you forget is a criminal offence
An HMO licence lasts up to five years, which is long enough to fall out of your calendar.
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There is no renewal letter and no grace period. The offence begins the day it lapses. LetBuddy holds the licence, the expiry, and the gas, electrical and alarm records behind it, on a property that already knows which nation’s rules apply.
Does your property need an HMO licence?
Two questions, for a property in England.
Do five or more people live there?
Do they form two or more households?
- YesAn unlicensed HMO that needs a licence is a criminal offence.
- DependsWhether a given property needs one is your council’s call. LetBuddy holds the licence and its date.
- YesReminders run ahead of expiry, and keep coming after it, whether or not you sign in.
Why licences lapse
It lapses quietly
Up to five years is long enough for the renewal date to leave your calendar.
Every council differs
Selective and additional schemes are set council by council.
Certificates expire separately
Gas, electrical and fire checks each run on their own clock.
Why it matters, in fullShow less
A licence lapses quietly
An HMO licence runs for up to five years, which is long enough that the renewal date leaves your calendar and your memory at the same time.
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Nobody chases you for it. You find out when the council does, and an unlicensed HMO is a criminal offence carrying an unlimited fine plus a rent repayment order of up to two years’ rent.
Every council writes its own rules
Mandatory licensing is national, but selective and additional licensing are set council by council, and an Article 4 direction can change what a property may be used for without changing anything about the property.
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Two flats on the same street under different authorities are two different compliance problems.
The certificates behind the licence expire on their own schedule
A licence application asks for gas safety, electrical safety and often a fire risk assessment.
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Each renews on its own clock, and the one that lapses is never the one you were watching.
How LetBuddy tracks it
The four stepsShow less
Add the property and its certificates
Every certificate is held against the property it belongs to — the HMO licence, a selective licence if the council requires one, gas safety, the EICR, the EPC and alarm checks — each with its own expiry date and its own reminder schedule.
Record the licence and its expiry
The licence goes on the property record with the date it runs to, so the renewal is a date the software holds rather than a date you hold.
Let it chase you
Reminders run ahead of expiry and keep coming after it, from our side, whether or not you have opened LetBuddy since.
Keep the evidence together
Gas safety, EICR, EPC and alarm checks sit against the property they belong to, which is the bundle a licence application or a council inspection asks for.
Where it sits
It sits beside your council and your adviser, not in place of either. LetBuddy tracks the dates and holds the documents; whether a given property needs a licence at all is a question for its local authority, and their answer is the only one that counts. It isn’t legal advice and it doesn’t apply for the licence for you.
Your council’s selective licensing designation is yours to record, not something LetBuddy guesses. Designations change and they are local, and software that guessed would be guessing about a criminal offence. You enter what applies to your property; LetBuddy makes sure the date does not slip.
Common questions
Does LetBuddy tell me whether my property needs an HMO licence?
No. Mandatory licensing has a national test, but selective and additional schemes are designated council by council and change on local timetables — so the authoritative answer is your local authority’s — the council-by-council pages at /licensing link to each council’s own scheme page. What LetBuddy does is hold the licence, its expiry, and the certificates behind it, and chase you before the date rather than after.
Does LetBuddy track HMO tenancies room by room?
Yes. A property holds as many concurrent tenancies as it has rooms, each labelled by room with its own rent, due day, ledger, deposit scheme and reference, tenant reporting link and dates. The licence, alarm checks and the other certificates sit on the property those tenancies share. On the bill, a five-room HMO is one property.
What happens if my licence expires?
Operating a licensable HMO without a licence is a criminal offence. Beyond the fine, tenants can apply for a rent repayment order of up to two years’ rent (doubled from one year on 1 May 2026), and a Section 21 notice could not be served — though that route has gone in England in any case since the Renters’ Rights Act. The practical point is that the penalty attaches to the lapse, not to the intent, so a date you forgot and a date you ignored cost the same.
Does it handle Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
The compliance calendar works the same in all four. A licence is tracked as a dated certificate with its own reminders wherever the property is, and LetBuddy does not encode each nation’s licensing triggers — whether a given property needs a licence, and under which scheme, is the local authority’s to state rather than software’s to guess. Nation does decide other things here: LetBuddy reads it from the property’s postcode, and it sets which deposit schemes and protection deadline apply and which possession and rent-increase routes are open to you.
Are the reminders dependent on me logging in?
No. They run on our side and reach you by email. A reminder that only appears once you open the software is a reminder for the months you were already paying attention.
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- PRS database checklistThe £65-a-year register, and the four things it wants kept current about every property.