Housing Minister Grant Shapps confirmed on 7 th September that landlords and councils will no longer be faced with excessive bureaucracy aimed at micro-managing the supply of rented housing.

The Minister has laid down new regulations that could cut as many as 8,500 planning applications from the system, freeing up councils to focus on local priorities. Currently landlords have to submit a planning application to rent their properties to unrelated tenants - via Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO’s). The new regulations will ensure councils only have to use this power where they know high concentrations of shared homes are a problem.

Grant Shapps said: "Councils understand their local area best, and they dont need burdensome rules that assume housing issues in every town, village and hamlet are exactly the same. I am also committed to safeguard the supply of rented housing as shared homes are vital for people who want to live and work in towns and cities, and are important to the economy.

"Thats why Im giving councils greater flexibility to manage shared homes in their local area. Where there are local issues with shared homes, councils will have all the tools they need to deal with the problem - but they will avoid getting bogged down in pointless planning applications, and landlords wont be put off renting shared homes where they are needed."

The definition of a small HMO (the C4 use class) will remain and permitted development rights will be extended to allow all changes between the C4 and C3 classes without the need for planning applications. In areas where there is a need to control HMO development, local authorities will be able to use an Article 4 direction to remove these permitted development rights and to require planning applications for such changes of use.

David Salusbury, Chairman of the NLA said: "We are pleased to see the Government has ended this unnecessary and wasteful bureaucracy whereby landlords are forced to seek planning permission to let to unrelated tenants.

“The current rules, rushed through before the General Election, are draconian and have threatened to drive good landlords away from the rental sector because of increased costs and red tape. The last thing communities need at this time is a restriction of affordable homes for rent.

Change of use between dwelling houses and small HMOs will now be able to happen without planning permission unless the local council believes there is problem with such development in a particular area. In these areas councils will be able to use article 4 powers to require planning permission.

According to Steve Bolton of Platinum Property Partners “The reality for landlords will be that unless an Article 4 has been introduced by a council, then with up to six people sharing – the property will not now need planning permission.”

(Editor’s note – this may not preclude it from any potential HMO licensing regulations)

Bolton continued: “There have been no alterations to the Article 4 regulations so it looks like councils will have to provide 12 months notice of introducing an Article 4 to avoid compensation claims. However, there has been no guidance around how large an area an Article 4 Direction can cover, so there is the potential of some councils attempting to use it over a whole city, this will have to be decided case-by-case as councils introduce them.”