Southampton landlords face £17,000 fines for unlicensed HMOs

Councillors were told the authority is investigating 30 cases, including unlicensed houses in multiple occupation (HMOs), which can attract minimum penalties of about £17,000.

Steven Hayes-Arter, private sector housing service manager, said the council would be issuing “quite hefty” fines in the next three to six months under Renters' Rights Act powers.

He told the housing scrutiny panel: “It will be interesting to see how those are received within the landlord community and how many of those end up going to appeal and how successful we will be in our debt recovery.

“We haven’t set any targets yet around the CPN usage.

“We wanted to see how the playing field kind of developed over the first year, so we haven’t set any financial forecasts against that at all.”

It is estimated there are between 6,000 and 7,000 HMOs in Southampton.

The panel meeting on September 3 was told the average the average fine under the previous enforcement regime was around £2,000.

Southampton City Council received a total of £610,163 from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for 2026/27 and 2027/28 to support the implementation of the new laws and carry out new duties related to homelessness prevention.

Mr Hayes-Arter said future support from central government had not been announced.

He said there was an expectation that all local authorities would fund ongoing enforcement work through a mixture of income from fines and a fee from the new national private rented sector database.

Councillors heard the enforcement team had doubled in size from one to two officers.

A huge part of their work this year was around identifying unlicensed HMOs.

Mr Hayes-Arter said the council would use data from previous licensing schemes, council tax, land registry and the soon-to-be completed stock condition survey to identify potential properties.

A particular focus had been placed on Freemantle over the past couple of months, with wardens carrying out street surveys and knocking on doors.

Mr Hayes-Arter said: “We are actively utilising as many avenues as we can to try to identify those unlicensed HMOs.”

University of Southampton’s Professor Helen Carr said overflowing bins was a good clue to spotting an HMO.

Conservative councillor Peter Baillie said the council should employ extra enforcement staff as they would pay for themselves.

Cllr Baillie said: “We need a load more people because they are going to pay for themselves and pay for themselves big time.

“If you look at other authorities where they’ve got some serious money in on fines, you could have a small army of people going round because you would get the fines.”

Sally Goodfellow, Labour cabinet member responsible for housing, said: “If we are getting money from the enforcement, why wouldn’t we employ more staff?

“It makes sense.”

Director of housing Jaime Brenchley said the department was looking to put together a robust business case to make sure it had the resources it needs within the funding limitations alongside potential income generated from fines.

Green Party panel member Sam Pryce, who represents Freemantle, said details on how to report suspected unlicensed HMOs needed to be shared with councillors.

Mr Hayes-Arter said any HMO-related concerns could be reported by emailing hmo@southampton.gov.uk.