Oxford City Council now requires that every landlord in the city who owns a property where there are three or more unrelated tenants should have an HMO licence.

Landlords who fail to comply with these regulations could be prosecuted and get up to a £20,000 fine. Compliance for a typical three-bedroom shared house will this year cost each landlord £362 in Oxford. Thereafter the annual cost will be £150. Accredited landlords registered with OCLAS or the NLA will get a significant discount.

Oxford is the first local authority in the country to introduce a HMO scheme beyond the existing mandatory one for larger properties which covers the whole of its area, and it believes that its new policy will involve licensing some 5,000 properties.

The council aims to restrict HMOs to a maximum of one in five properties in any 100-metre stretch of road, potentially affecting any new supply of student properties and other sharer groups such as nurses.

Each landlord will face an HMO inspection by a health and safety team and also personal background checks to confirm that they are ‘fit and proper’ to hold a licence.

The scheme applies to all two storey or single storey HMOs that contain three or four occupiers and all self contained flats that are HMOs, irrespective of the number of storeys.

Commenting on the introduction of the ‘additional licensing scheme’, Joe McManners, member for housing at Oxford City Council, said: “HMOs have long been recognised as being a particular problem in the city, with many examples of poor-quality homes and in some cases being poorly managed. These damage the reputation of good landlords and we are determined to put this right, and stop those doing the right thing being undercut by cowboys.

“The private rented sector is hugely important to the residents of Oxford, not just in terms of providing much-needed accommodation, but also with the impact that it can have on local communities, and licensing every HMO will help drive up standards for everyone.”

However Frank Webster, director of Oxford based letting agency Finders Keepers, said: “This licensing scheme was totally unnecessary as we believe the council already has sufficient powers to tackle any isolated problems caused by the very small minority of irresponsible landlords or of mismanaged properties.

“We don’t see the need for a whole lot of extra draconian licensing,” added Webster. “Will it affect those landlords who are already dodging the system? No it won’t.”