The Residential Landlords Association and the British Property Fereration are urging the Government to remember its pre-election pledge to revoke the previous Labour government’s change for the planning rules on shared houses .

This follows the recent announcement by Housing Minister Grant Shapps that the Government has no plans to reverse the changes to the planning and regulatory rules on HMOs.

RLA chairman Alan Ward said: “Since April this year landlords can no longer allow groups of three or more young people such as nurses to share a house without getting planning permission. Some three thousand landlords wrote to their MPs before the election to voice their opposition. We hope that the Minister has a better plan to announce shortly and not disappoint both tenants and landlords by changing his mind.”

Speaking in Parliament on the 10th June, Shapps stated that he “was keen to have HMO controls in areas with studentification problems, but wanted to review the current legislation to ensure it is not too overarching and leading to problems in areas that don’t have those issues.”

Ian Fletcher, director of policy at the British Property Federation, said: “Revoking the half-baked HMO planning legislation slipped in at the death by the previous Government was a pre-election pledge of the Conservatives. We hope this will be pursued swiftly as it is leading to confusion, unnecessary bureaucracy and expense at local level, and ultimately restricts affordable homes for those in need. If the Minister wants to replace it with something better targeted then that is his prerogative, but the clear message from landlords is the current system is a dog’s dinner and time is therefore of the essence.”