[2023] UKUT 129 (LC)

100 Bluegates Road in Leicester is a two-storey mid-terrace house built in the 1980s. The FTT inspected it and described it as relatively modern and in a generally satisfactory condition. It has five habitable rooms, two on the ground floor and three on the upper floor. There is no dispute that four of those rooms were let at the material time as bed-sitting rooms, and that the fifth room, referred to in the evidence as Room 5, is too small lawfully to be let as a bedroom other than for occupation by a child under the age of ten.

The house was acquired by Ms Morjaria in 2014 and she immediately began letting the four larger rooms on written agreements creating assured shorthold tenancies. There is no evidence that Room 5 has ever been let on a written tenancy agreement.

On 1 October 2018 the Licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation (Prescribed Description) (England) Order 2018 came into force. For the first time two-storey houses were required to be licensed as HMO’s if they were occupied by five or more people living in two or more households. Ms Morjaria did not apply for a licence. It has always been her case that she did not need one because only four people lived in the house and Room 5 was not occupied as living accommodation.