Council licensing in East of England

Licensing in Uttlesford

Uttlesford has no selective or additional licensing scheme in force.

Checked 14 Oct 2026

Check an address in Uttlesford

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 only22

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: None found
Consultation: None open

Licensing schemes

Mandatory HMO licence
In forceMedium confidence
Mandatory HMO licensing (national scheme, Uttlesford fees)
Area
The whole of Uttlesford District (national scheme).
Fee
£1,394 for 5 years
2026/27 fees from the Fees and Charges schedule (Appendix C) approved by Full Council with the 2026/27 budget on 24 February 2026; the council's live fee page blocks automated access. Up to 5 bedrooms: part 1 fee £658.00 with the application (covers processing and inspection) and part 2 fee £736.00 before the licence is issued, total £1,394.00; £39.00 per additional letting room; renewal £736.00; incomplete application £39.00; reminder letter £39.00; variation (change of address or manager) £12.50; missed appointment £166.00. For 2026/27 a 5% discount applies to valid applications received without a request from the council (the rest of the discount wording is cut off in the published schedule). The schedule's footnote still gives a total of £1,343.10, the 2025/26 figure (£633.90 + £709.20), but its table sums to £1,394.00. Fees are reviewed each 1 April.
Who needs one
HMOs let to five or more people forming two or more households who share facilities.
Exemptions
Statutory exemptions under Schedule 14 of the Housing Act 2004.
How we checked this
This is the national scheme. Uttlesford publishes its own HMO page and fee schedule, but uttlesford.gov.uk returned a Cloudflare challenge (HTTP 403) to every automated request, so the fee comes from the 2026/27 Fees and Charges schedule (Appendix C) that Full Council approved with the budget on 24 February 2026. The HMO page (uttlesford.gov.uk) was read only through a Wayback Machine copy of 25 January 2025, which says a licence is needed for HMOs let to five or more people from two or more households. The 2026/27 schedule says 'The licensing period is 5 years from the date the application was made.' On 14 April 2026 Cabinet adopted a new Private Sector Housing Enforcement Policy for the Renters' Rights Act 2025 and delegated amendments to the mandatory HMO licence conditions to officers. No additional or selective licensing scheme, proposal or consultation was found in the Cabinet papers or web searches.
Sources

Article 4 for house shares

We found no Article 4 direction on house shares in Uttlesford.

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.

On 14 April 2026 Cabinet resolved to end the civil penalty approach in the April 2024 Private Sector Housing Enforcement Policy for newly identified offences and to adopt a new Civil Penalties Policy covering Renters' Rights Act 2025 breaches, both from 1 May 2026. Under the new policy, failure to obtain an HMO licence (s.72(1)) starts at £17,000, with a landlord-type adjustment (£13,600 down, £20,400 up) and a statutory maximum of £40,000, before mitigating and aggravating factors; a 15% discount applies for prompt payment. Offences identified before 1 May 2026 fall under the April 2024 policy (maximum £30,000, matrix starting at £750).

Uttlesford's civil penalty policy

Consultations

We found no consultations when we researched Uttlesford.

Not yet confirmed

We could not settle these points when we researched Uttlesford on 14 October 2026. Check them with the council before you rely on them.

Not yet confirmed
uttlesford.gov.uk blocks automated access (Cloudflare 403), so the current HMO page and its apply link could not be read. The 2026/27 fees come from the Full Council budget papers of 24 February 2026, not from the live fee page.
Not yet confirmed
The Article 4 page was checked only through a May 2025 Wayback Machine copy; confirm no HMO Article 4 direction has been made since.
Not yet confirmed
Whether the 14 April 2026 Cabinet decisions were called in was not checked, and the adopted Civil Penalties Policy was taken from the Cabinet papers rather than the council website.
Not yet confirmed
The absence of discretionary licensing is inferred from the April 2026 Cabinet papers and web searches; the council's own licensing pages could not be read.

Landlord register

The national landlord register is separate from licensing. Uttlesford is in East of England, where registration is planned from 15 January 2027 to 14 April 2027. The regulations are still in draft. Read about the register