Council licensing in East Midlands

Licensing in North Northamptonshire

North Northamptonshire has no selective or additional licensing scheme in force.

Checked 15 Oct 2026

Check an address in North Northamptonshire

We'll match the postcode to its ward and the schemes below.

Licensing, ward by ward

Select a ward to see its name and licensing.

National rules only31

Current ward boundaries from ONS. Some homes are exempt, so check your postcode and the scheme details below.

Selective licensing: None
Additional HMO licensing: No
Article 4 on house shares: Yes
Consultation: None open

Licensing schemes

Mandatory HMO licence
In force
Mandatory HMO licensing (national scheme, North Northamptonshire fees)
Area
Current North Northamptonshire Council unitary area, encompassing former Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough and East Northamptonshire areas. The current HMO register supplies CBC/KBC/BCW/ENC legacy-area search prefixes. West Northamptonshire is separate. Kingswood Article 4 planning controls do not apply across the whole unitary.
Fee
Published standard fee: £1,516
Current licensing fees page updated 4 September 2026: £958 on new application plus £558 on successful grant, total £1,516. Renewal application £958 plus renewal grant £558 (same total). Change of details £37; copy licence £20; copy of register £67. No bedroom-based add-on or early-bird discount is stated in the retrieved HMO table. A grant fee is paid after the council’s request notice, not in place of the initial application fee.
Who needs one
HMOs occupied by five or more people forming two or more households sharing basic amenities, regardless of storeys. Purpose-built blocks with up to two flats are covered where one or both flats independently meet the five-person/two-household test; each qualifying flat needs its own licence.
Apply on the council’s website Licence conditions
How we checked this
Licence valid for up to five years and not transferable to a new owner/person/property. Application guidance requires proof of address/photographic ID and basic DBS certificates issued no more than three months before application for named individuals; fit/proper person, suitable amenities and management are assessed. The current conditions/inspection page (updated 18 June 2026) lists requirements and annual inspections; particular licences may have discretionary conditions. The law-on-HMOs page, updated 22 October 2025, expressly says the council does not meet the evidence thresholds for selective or additional licensing and that additional licensing would not be appropriate at present. This describes its view of the evidence, not a universal statement of every statutory ground. No operating discretionary scheme was located. No later designation, approved future scheme, active licensing consultation or scheme ending since 15 October 2025 was found in current/legacy district and committee searches. National powers, generic references to selective offences in the enforcement policy and Article 4 planning controls are not additional-HMO designations. The October 2025 application page retains old £30,000/12-month-RRO/section21 and solid-fuel-only alarm wording; these are not treated as current law. The June 2026 conditions page describes the wider fixed-combustion alarm requirement.
Sources

Article 4 for house shares

North Northamptonshire has an Article 4 direction on HMOs (houses in multiple occupation, or shared houses). Turning a family home into a shared house may need planning permission.

Area: Defined part of Kingswood, Corby, edged red on the signed Schedule 2 plan; not all Corby, not the whole unitary and not inferred to be the whole current ward. Made 24 April 2023, confirmed 22 December 2023, operative 24 April 2024. It removes permitted development for C3-to-C4 changes within the mapped land; pre-existing lawful HMO use is separately addressed by the council guidance. Current unitary research identifies six HMO hotspots but says insufficient evidence for another direction; hotspots do not themselves create planning restrictions. The signed two-page direction/map was fetched and its red-boundary map visually inspected, but no address-level geometry adjudication was performed. Instrument: https://cms.northnorthants.gov.uk/media/8754/download .
Takes effect: 24 Apr 2024

Council source

Civil penalty policy

The council's policy sets how it decides the size of a fine.

Current policy landing updated 14 August 2026 links May 2026 version 2.1. Its version history and actual Executive minutes confirm approval on 12 May 2026: northnorthants.moderngov.co.uk . The Private Sector Housing schedule and Appendix 1 retain a four-tier matrix (severity; culpability/harm; portfolio-size deterrence multiplier; financial gain) and historic £30,000 ceiling. The retrieved full current PDF contains no RRA reference and no £40,000 entry. Council RRA guidance separately says stronger powers apply from 1 May 2026: northnorthants.gov.uk . No later adopted RRA-specific matrix was located, so current RRA update status remains unknown and historic maxima are not presented as current statutory law.

North Northamptonshire's civil penalty policy

Consultations

We found no consultations when we researched North Northamptonshire.

Not yet confirmed

We could not settle these points when we researched North Northamptonshire on 15 October 2026. Check them with the council before you rely on them.

Not yet confirmed
Confirm whether any housing-licensing designation, consultation or recently expired scheme postdates the explicit 22 October 2025 no-selective/additional position. Current unified and legacy Corby/Kettering/Wellingborough/East Northamptonshire searches found none; a formal latest assurance was not obtained.
Not yet confirmed
Obtain the current RRA civil-penalty matrix or explanation of the May 2026 adopted policy’s retained £30,000 ceiling and absence of RRA references. Adoption in May does not alone establish that the housing appendix implements the RRA; no current fine is inferred.
Not yet confirmed
Check the precise Kingswood property against the signed red-boundary plan/council interactive map. The direction covers parts, and historic Kingswood ward wording must not become whole-current-ward or whole-Corby matching.
Not yet confirmed
Application-page historic sanctions and some alarm/conviction wording need updating; use current statutory criteria and individual licence conditions rather than reproducing those as current legal advice.
Not yet confirmed
A complete statutory-exemption determination for unusual buildings is not supplied by the fetched local summary; purpose-built-flat guidance and national exclusions must be checked for the property.

Landlord register

The national landlord register is separate from licensing. North Northamptonshire is in East Midlands, where registration is planned from 15 February 2027 to 14 May 2027. The regulations are still in draft. Read about the register