{"id":678115,"date":"2026-07-07T07:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678115\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T07:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:56:10","slug":"luton-landlords-lose-long-legal-battle-over-hmos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678115\/","title":{"rendered":"Luton landlords lose long legal battle over HMOs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of the more than 4,500 HMOs thought to exist in the borough, only about 20%, external<\/a> meet the criteria for mandatory licensing.<\/p>\n

The new schemes could bring hundreds of extra properties into the licensing regime, which would force landlords to adhere to conditions or risk enforcement action.<\/p>\n

But it will still be possible for landlords to hide the existence of smaller HMOs, particularly if tenants fear losing their accommodation if they inform the authorities.<\/p>\n

Effective enforcement requires staff to be dedicated to the role of investigating and inspecting HMOs, an expensive service for councils that are struggling to balance their budgets.<\/p>\n

If the landlords’ predictions of the rental market shrinking comes true, tenants may end up worse off as rents increase, and some may be forced into the sort of under-the-radar accommodation that the council wants to dismantle.<\/p>\n

Do you have a story suggestion for Beds, Herts or Bucks? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of the more than 4,500 HMOs thought to exist in the borough, only about 20%, external meet the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-678115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}