Referring back to Question of the Month (June 2026): No Vacation from Housing Law — When do holiday lets become dwellings and come under housing legislation?

How does this play out in terms of sole use criteria for HMOs?

Last month I responded to the question When do holiday lets become dwellings and come under housing legislation?, with the reasoning that holiday lets would normally be subject to action under Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004. I ended that answer with the comment that ‘Whether they will also require HMO or selective licences under parts 2 and 3 of the Act will depend on whether the relevant additional criteria apply’.

The key definitions of what currently can be regarded as an HMO are set out in sections 254–260 of the 2004 Act. In terms of the standard definition under section 254(2)(d), there is the requirement that it is the only use of the accommodation. 

However, under section 255, a local authority can declare a building or part of a building an HMO if it meets the other criteria of the standard test (and the self-contained flat or converted building tests) if the usage is significant rather than the only use. By virtue of section 260(1), it is to be presumed that a building meets the sole or significant usage requirement until the contrary is proved. On this basis, Herefordshire successfully appealed against an adverse First-tier Tribunal (FTT) decision to the Upper Tribunal, which ruled that the starting point was the information available at the time of the declaration, rather than the FTT’s subsequent inspection (which pointed to the property meeting the relevant HMO definition) (see Herefordshire Council v Rohde [2016] UKUT 39 (LC)).

In Oxford Hotel Investments Ltd v Great Yarmouth Borough Council [2025] UKUT 387 (LC) [2026] HLR 12, the usage of 32 out of 62 rooms by homeless persons as their main accommodation was sufficient to satisfy the significant use element in section 255, so that the declaration was upheld.

Similarly, the occupation by property guardians of a former office building and former nurses’ accommodation was sufficient to meet the sole use element, allowing the rent repayment orders to be made for what were unlicensed HMOs (Global 100 Ltd v Jimenez [2023] EWCA Civ 1243 [2024] HLR 2). An important point was made by Judge Martin Rogers (see paragraphs 7 and 15 of his judgment) at the Upper Tribunal stage of this case [2022] UKUT 50 (LC) [2022] HLR 25. 

He said:

Effective regulation and action by local housing authorities to reduce risks to the health and wellbeing of residents of repurposed or converted living accommodation is as important an objective as it has ever been. The limits of effective regulation are set by the definition of ‘HMO’ in section 254; it is important that this definition is not interpreted so narrowly as to frustrate the achievement of the statutory purpose.

So again, the answer in many scenarios I can think of is that such units will remain subject to interventions under parts 2 and 3 of the 2004 Act (as well as under Part 1) provided they trigger the relevant criteria, with the help of the above decisions. By virtue of the clear wording of section 260 and the case law, it will be for the appellant, etc. to prove that the building is not covered by the sole or significant use elements rather than for the local authority to prove that they are. This means that any doubt should be construed in support of the local authority’s action.