Selective licensing: MPs want tougher council powers

A report from the House of Commons Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee, published in early July 2026, has reopened the debate over how much power councils should have to license rented homes. The cross-party committee wants selective licensing schemes to be easier for councils to set up, to run for up to 10 years, and to require landlords to carry out physical improvements as a condition of holding a licence. Landlord bodies have pushed back hard, arguing the changes would simply duplicate information the new Private Rented Sector Database is already designed to collect. Nothing in the report becomes law immediately, but it signals where policy pressure is heading, and landlords with properties in or near existing licensing areas should take notice.

What selective licensing actually covers

Selective licensing lets a council designate a specific area, sometimes a few streets, sometimes a whole ward, where every private rented property must hold a licence, regardless of size or number of occupants. It sits alongside mandatory and additional HMO licensing, which apply to shared houses. Councils use selective licensing to target areas with poor property conditions, high levels of antisocial behaviour, or low housing demand, and it gives them a legal route to inspect properties, set conditions, and fine or prosecute landlords who fail to comply. At least 16 major licensing schemes are scheduled to launch across England in 2026 alone, with typical fees ranging from around £750 to more than £2,100 per property depending on the council and the length of the licence.

What the committee is asking for

The report calls on the Government to remove what it describes as barriers that discourage councils from using selective licensing, and to let schemes run for up to 10 years rather than the current five. It also recommends giving councils the power to require landlords to carry out physical improvement works to a property as a condition of granting or renewing a licence, rather than licensing being treated purely as a registration and inspection exercise. Committee chair Florence Eshalomi MP said stronger, more proactive regulation and enforcement of standards by local authorities is needed to improve conditions for tenants.

The recommendations go further than licensing alone. The committee also wants incentives and deterrents to speed up compliance with the 2035 Decent Homes Standard deadline, Awaab's Law protections rolled out to cover almost all housing hazards by the end of 2028/29, and Local Housing Allowance unfrozen so it better matches market rents. Notably, the committee stopped short of recommending rent controls, instead favouring stronger enforcement of the protections already on the books.

Landlord groups are not on board

The National Residential Landlords Association has rejected the licensing proposals outright. Chief executive Ben Beadle said the NRLA fundamentally rejects the idea that it should be easier for councils to introduce landlord licensing schemes, arguing that licensing works best when used sparingly and in a focused way, and that broad powers for councils would simply duplicate information the Private Rented Sector Database is designed to hold once it rolls out later this year. The tension is not new. In the same week as the report's publication, landlords won a legal challenge against a South Coast council over how it had applied its own licensing powers, a reminder that scheme design and enforcement do not always survive a court's scrutiny.

Why this sits on top of an already busy compliance calendar

Even without new licensing powers, landlords already have a string of dates to track. Rented homes need to reach EPC C or an equivalent standard by 1st October 2030 under updated minimum energy efficiency rules. The wider Decent Homes Standard, which fails a property outright if it contains a single category 1 hazard under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, applies to the private rented sector from 2035, with the Government's own impact assessment estimating that around 48 percent of rented homes would currently fail the updated definition, mostly due to disrepair. Awaab's Law, which sets fixed timescales for fixing serious hazards like damp and mould, already applies to social housing and is expected to extend to the private rented sector as part of a later phase of the Renters' Rights Act, though no firm date has been confirmed.

What this could mean for you

Nothing in the select committee's report is binding. Select committees scrutinise policy and make recommendations, but it is the Government that decides whether and how to act on them, and that process typically takes months rather than weeks. Even so, the direction of travel is consistent with everything else happening in the sector this year: more registration, more inspection, and more conditions attached to letting a property legally. If you already hold a licence in a selective licensing area, a longer renewal cycle and improvement conditions would likely mean higher upfront costs but less frequent admin. If your property sits just outside a current scheme boundary, it is worth keeping an eye on your local council's consultations, since selective licensing areas do expand.

What to do now

1. Check whether your property already falls inside a selective or additional HMO licensing area on your local council's website, and confirm your licence is current if it does.
2. Keep gas safety, electrical (EICR) and, where applicable, fire safety records up to date and easy to produce, since these are the first things an inspecting officer will ask for.
3. Get ahead of the EPC C deadline now rather than in 2029, since retrofit work such as insulation or heating upgrades can take time to schedule and fund.
4. Sign up for your council's landlord newsletter or licensing consultation alerts, so you hear about a new scheme before it is confirmed rather than after your area is designated.
5. If you are weighing up whether self-management is still worth the admin, factor in how much of your time compliance tracking already takes, and whether that balance is likely to shift further.

The bottom line

This report will not change your obligations overnight, and landlord bodies are clearly ready to fight the licensing expansion point by point. But compliance in the private rented sector is trending in one direction, not the other, and the safest approach is to treat every recommendation like this as advance notice rather than background noise. Staying ahead of certificates, standards and licensing status now is considerably cheaper than scrambling to catch up once a new scheme is confirmed in your area.

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