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Licensing in Slough

Slough has no selective or additional licensing scheme in force. A selective scheme across the whole council area is proposed. A additional HMO scheme across the whole council area is proposed. A additional HMO scheme across the whole council area is proposed.

Checked 15 Oct 2026

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Licensing, ward by ward

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  • Scheme approved or proposed21

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
Not yet confirmed
Consultation
Awaiting decision

Licensing schemes

  • Mandatory HMO licence

    In force

    Mandatory HMO licensing

    Area

    Whole Slough Borough Council district.

    Fee

    Published standard fee: £1,086.30

    Current council fee page: £1,086.30 up to six bedrooms, made up of Part A £551.30 and Part B £535. Add £36.80 to Part A for each bedroom from the seventh; bedrooms one to six do not incur the supplement. Part A is taken with the initial application and Part B automatically when the draft licence is issued. Renewals cost the same as new applications. The page describes fees as non-refundable and licences as non-transferable; confirm exceptional refund circumstances directly. No separate current discount or financial-year label is published on the fee page.

    Who needs one
    HMOs occupied by five or more people forming two or more households and sharing basic amenities, regardless of storeys; subject to statutory building and occupation exclusions.
    Exemptions
    Statutory exclusions apply. The current council page distinguishes a shared HMO from a single family or two-person letting. Converted blocks and individual flats need their separate legal tests.
    Apply on the council’s websiteLicence conditions
    How we checked this

    Apply online through the council-linked property licensing portal; there is no paper application. Renew at least two months before expiry. Licences last up to five years but may be shorter for non-compliance, unsuitable management, fit-and-proper or planning issues. A purchaser must make a new application. The council currently links amenity standards, which contain older introductory references to additional licensing; these do not establish a current additional designation or replace the individual issued conditions. The old additional and selective designations ended in June 2024. Unexpired individual licences remain operative until expiry or revocation, and their conditions must still be complied with. Current proposals are recorded separately and are not current licensing duties. Older £30,000/12-month-rent/section 21 material is not relied on as current law.

    Sources

  • Selective licence

    Proposed

    Proposed borough-wide selective licensing

    Area

    Proposed whole Slough borough, all wards; unlike the former selective scheme limited to Chalvey/Central areas.

    Fee

    Published standard fee: £750

    Proposal only: £750, Part A £400 with an unprompted application and Part B £350 before grant. A prompted application would add £75 to Part A, total £825. No early-bird or accreditation discount is proposed. A £75 Part A reduction is proposed for second/later qualifying self-contained flats where at least three share ownership and management and are applied for simultaneously.

    Who needs one
    Proposed licensing of privately rented properties let to a single person, one family/household or two unrelated sharers, where not licensable under Part 2 HMO licensing.
    Exemptions
    The consultation excludes properties licensable as HMOs and describes statutory exemptions, including qualifying public-body/social housing, qualifying educational student accommodation, long leases, holiday lets and relevant resident-landlord arrangements. Final adopted wording must be checked.
    Licence conditions
    How we checked this

    Consultation ran from 15 July to 23 September 2026 and is closed. The council’s 20 April 2026 decision agreed to consult across all wards; it did not make a licensing designation. The current forward-plan issue remains For Determination with a Cabinet decision due 16 November 2026. No final approval, made designation or commencement/expiry date was established as at 15 October. Five years is the proposed scheme duration and maximum licence term, not an operative period. The previous borough-wide additional and Chalvey/Central selective schemes ended in June 2024; valid unexpired individual licences can continue. This row describes a proposal only.

    Sources

  • Additional HMO licence

    Proposed

    Proposed borough-wide additional HMO licensing — shared HMOs

    Area

    Proposed whole Slough borough, all 21 wards; no designation is currently in force under this proposal.

    Fee

    Published standard fee: £950

    Proposal only: £950, Part A £525 with an unprompted application and Part B £425 before grant. A prompted application would add £75 to Part A, total £1,025. The evidence report proposes no early-bird or accreditation reduction. Proposed £75 Part A discount for the second and later self-contained flats where at least three have common ownership and management and applications are simultaneous; confirm its application to the particular property and final adopted fees.

    Who needs one
    Proposed licensing of non-mandatory HMOs, including shared properties occupied by three or four people forming two or more households and sharing basic amenities. A separate component describes the proposal for section 257 converted blocks.
    Exemptions
    The consultation proposes licensing HMOs outside mandatory licensing, subject to statutory exclusions. Final approved exemptions are not established.
    Licence conditions
    How we checked this

    Consultation ran from 15 July to 23 September 2026 and is closed. The council’s 20 April 2026 decision agreed to consult across all wards; it did not make a licensing designation. The current forward-plan issue remains For Determination with a Cabinet decision due 16 November 2026. No final approval, made designation or commencement/expiry date was established as at 15 October. Five years is the proposed scheme duration and maximum licence term, not an operative period. The previous borough-wide additional and Chalvey/Central selective schemes ended in June 2024; valid unexpired individual licences can continue. This row describes a proposal only.

    Sources

  • Additional HMO licence

    Proposed

    Proposed borough-wide additional HMO licensing — converted-block component

    Area

    Same proposed whole-borough additional designation as the shared-HMO component; shown separately because converted blocks require a different building assessment.

    Fee

    Published standard fee: £950

    The proposal publishes an additional-licence tariff of £950 (£525 Part A + £425 Part B), with £75 extra for a prompted application. It does not separately resolve the property-specific charging of every section 257 building and flat. A proposed multi-flat Part A discount has common-ownership/management and simultaneous-application conditions; do not assume that a block licence substitutes for each flat’s separate requirements.

    Who needs one
    Proposed additional licensing of section 257 HMOs: buildings converted entirely into self-contained flats where conversion did not meet the appropriate building standards and still does not, and fewer than two-thirds of the flats are owner-occupied, as described in the consultation evidence report.
    Exemptions
    Final adopted block scope and statutory exemptions remain to be confirmed. The proposal concerns the whole converted building, not automatically every individually occupied flat.
    Licence conditions
    How we checked this

    Consultation ran from 15 July to 23 September 2026 and is closed. The council’s 20 April 2026 decision agreed to consult across all wards; it did not make a licensing designation. The current forward-plan issue remains For Determination with a Cabinet decision due 16 November 2026. No final approval, made designation or commencement/expiry date was established as at 15 October. Five years is the proposed scheme duration and maximum licence term, not an operative period. The previous borough-wide additional and Chalvey/Central selective schemes ended in June 2024; valid unexpired individual licences can continue. This row describes a proposal only. The detailed evidence report specifies the owner-occupation threshold and appropriate Building Regulations 1991 or 2000, whichever applied to conversion. This is one proposal with a conditional block component, not two separate legal designations.

    Sources

Article 4 for house shares

Not yet confirmed

Whether Slough has an Article 4 direction on house shares.

Council source

Civil penalty policy

The council's policy sets how it decides the size of a fine. The version we found has been updated for the Renters' Rights Act.

The current Housing Regulation and Trading Standards civil-penalty policy expressly covers the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. The actual 22 June 2026 Cabinet decision approves it and the separate Housing Regulation Enforcement Policy; the published policy also states Approved by Cabinet 22 June 2026. Decision: slough.moderngov.co.uk . The decision sheet gives 1 July 2026 as the ordinary implementation date after call-in. The HMO-unlicensed matrix starts at £17,000, with landlord-type examples £13,600/£17,000/£20,400 and a £40,000 statutory maximum; further case-specific factors apply. The policy also covers £7,000 tenancy breaches and other statutory tiers. A discretionary 25% first-offence reduction for Housing Act/RRA offences requires early admission, completed remedial requirements and full net payment within 28 days of the Final Notice; it is not automatic or available merely for paying quickly. Confirm offence-date transition and the notice-specific assessment. Older licensing website penalty summaries do not replace this adopted policy.

Slough's civil penalty policy

Consultations

Not yet confirmed

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

  • Not yet confirmed

    Follow the Cabinet decision currently scheduled for 16 November 2026 on the closed discretionary-licensing consultation. The April decision authorised consultation, not a designation. Obtain any subsequent signed designations, confirmed commencement/last operative dates, final fees, exemptions and conditions before treating the proposals as approved or in force.

  • Not yet confirmed

    For the proposed section 257 component, confirm the final converted-building eligibility test, responsible licence holder, fee and relationship between whole-building and individual-flat licensing. The proposed block component is separate here only to explain its different building test, not a second legal designation.

  • Not yet confirmed

    Confirm the effective financial year of the current mandatory tariff, any exceptional refunds/discounts and the complete current issued licence conditions. The linked amenity standards have older additional-licensing introductory text.

  • Not yet confirmed

    The July 2026 council news dates the former schemes from 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2024; the consultation evidence report instead says 1 July 2020 while also describing five years. Both put cessation in June 2024, outside the latest twelve-month expiry window. Recover the old instruments if an individual legacy licence or historical liability depends on exact dates or old Chalvey/Central boundaries.

  • Not yet confirmed

    Confirm HMO-specific Article 4 status directly with Planning if material to a property. The recovered borough-wide Article 4 direction is about caravans, not C3-to-C4 conversions.

  • Not yet confirmed

    Confirm the penalty policy applicable to the particular offence date, including any transition before ordinary implementation on 1 July 2026.

Landlord register

The national landlord register is separate from licensing. Slough is in South East, where registration is planned from 15 March 2027 to 14 June 2027. The regulations are still in draft. Read about the register