Property Licence Guide
A licensing scheme changes somewhere in the UK on average every eight days. Understand what property licensing means, how different schemes work and what changing requirements could mean for you.
Understand what a scheme actually means
Mandatory, additional, selective, Article 4. The words councils use are not the words most people would choose, and getting them wrong is how a property ends up unlicensed by accident. Six terms, explained in plain English, with no council named, because the definitions do not change by postcode.
Look up what applies where you operate
Council by council guides to which schemes are running, what a licence costs, which wards are covered and the dates that matter. Kept current by Kamma, so you are reading the position now rather than the position when the page was written.
What we have published
Explainers, data and briefings from the team. For everything we have published, the full archive is always open.
The councils making £327m from licensing
Revenue and licensed property counts for 50 councils, compiled from public registers, council websites and Freedom of Information requests.
Read itHMO inspection checklist
What a council inspector looks for, and what to have ready before they arrive.
Read itEnfield extends its HMO scheme to 2030
Five more years, so properties licensed under it need planning well ahead.
Read itRed Tape Revolution
How councils were resourcing enforcement, and where the pressure was building.
Read itKept current by people, not by chance
Four in-house teams work on licensing and nothing else. Council Compliance checks every council's announcements every working day and verifies what changes by hand. Engineering ships the fix as fast as the rules change. Customer Success and Licence Applications keep it usable and see licences through to approval. What is published here reflects what they find, not what happens to be convenient to leave standing.
Ready to check your own portfolio?
See which of your properties need a licence, free. For a single check, use the tool. For a whole portfolio, checked every working day, that is what Kamma Suite does.
