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Appeal lodged after councillors turn down plan for HMO in Rhosddu

A planning appeal has been submitted after plans to convert a property in Rhosddu into a house in multiple occupation (HMO) were refused by councillors.

The appeal, which has been submitted on behalf of applicants AJAK developments ltd, comes after planning committee members unanimously voted to reject plans for the property in Park Street, Rhosddu.

It had been proposed that the property was converted into a five-bedroom house in multiple occupation (HMO) for a maximum of eight residents.

However despite being recommended for approval by the head of environment and planning at Wrexham Council, committee members refused the plans amid concerns of lack of parking and amenity space.

Speaking at the time Grosvenor councillor Marc Jones, said: ““Anyone who knows Park Street will know that ironically given its name, it is one of the worst places in Wrexham to park. It is a one way street, it’s probably the narrowest street in Wrexham and people have to drive on the pavement to get past.

“If you don’t know the place you would not believe how narrow that road is. It is impossible to get past in a van if there is a van parked there. The curb stones are cracked, it’s not safe.

“A household of two adults and a number of children who may be of driving age would have far fewer cars or vehicles than with eight adults in. If those eight adults are in work it is more than likely they will need cars of vehicles to get to their place of work.

“Regardless of what anyone says, public transport in Wrexham is inadequate.”

However the appeal submitted by Mr Bob Dewey on behalf of the applicants states that the committee’s decision “does not accord with the professional recommendation made by the council’s planning officers”.

Commenting on the concerns about parking in the area, Mr Dewey says: “It is self-evident that the existing houses have inadequate parking – the road is barely wide enough for parking along one side and it is presumed that some residents use the small public car park located on the Park Street/Rhosddu Road corner.

“Given the severe lack of parking for some 27 house along the most restricted part of the road, it is not unreasonable to think that some residents may not own cars. Certainly, any occupier of this proposed accommodation would be ill advised to take up residence if she/he owns a car.”

With regards to amenity space for the HMO it is noted: “This is a densely developed urban area where the full provision is unlikely to be feasible.

“There are large public open spaces some 400 m away on either side of Rhosddu Road with plenty of sitting out areas. There are allotments adjacent to Chester Road.”

The agent concludes: “This is a proposal to bring a property into a viable use and provide much needed accommodation for people who want to live close to Wrexham Town centre. The site is therefore extremely sustainable with the centre easily walkable.

“The bus station is on this side of the centre and there are footpath links to the railway station. There are areas of green open space on both sides of Rhosddu Road close to the site.

“No objective evidence has been put forward as to why the use would cause any harm to the amenities of the area. It fully supports WG’s objective of reducing the need for private car usage.

“The inspector is requested to grant permission.”

The appeal will be considered by the planning inspector at a later date.

Source: Wrexham

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Plans to convert property on edge of town centre into HMO approved

An application to convert a property on the edge of the town centre into a house in multiple occupation (HMO) for seven people has been granted.

The plans for the property in the Derby Road area of Wrexham were put to planning committee members on Monday.

Whitegate councillor Brian Cameron urged members to either refuse the application or carry out a site visit due to see the existing safety and parking issues on the road.

Cllr Cameron said: “Derby Road is a very busy road and there are HGV wagons that go to and from units. Two to three years ago due to the weight of some of the vehicles the road gave way and work had to be done.

“My concern is 24 Derby Road isn’t far from the junction of Kingsmills Road and parking is already very difficult in that area.

“The report talks about parking on the site – my view of parking on the site is if they don’t reverse on, how are they going to get back onto the highway? There is no room to manoeuvre.

“It’s safety in my opinion. It is very close to a junction and there is a lot of parking on the opposite side of the road. There is very little room for parking and it is a very busy junction. It is one of the busiest roads you can have.

“The last thing I would want to see is an accident on that road.”

Cllr Adrienne Jeorrett, who represents the neighbouring Smithfield ward, said she could not support the application due to the existing traffic on the road and the speed heading towards the Kingsmills junction.

However chairman of the committee, Cllr Michael Morris, said the chances of a refusal from the committee being overturned at appeal stage are “great” as the plans meet the council’s standards.

Planning officer Matthew Phillips said that the application had been recommended for approval and that four parking spaces would be provided on the site.

It was also suggested by the council’s highways department that a condition to remove a section of the boundary wall to make manoeuvring in and out of the site easier was put in place.

A recommendation that the committee visited the site was rejected, with seven councillors to six voting in favour of the application subject to the above condition being put in place.

Source: Wrexham

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Appeal over Wrexham HMO plans is kicked out

An appeal against the rejection of plans to extend a house in multiple occupation (HMO) has been thrown out.

Wrexham Council denied permission to increase the number of bedrooms at a property on Poplar Road in the town from six to eight in October.

Owner Arran Pritchard later launched an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate on the grounds that the authority did not decide on his application within the relevant timescale.

However, an inspector appointed by the Welsh Government has upheld the council’s decision.

Siân Worden said she felt it would impact on the safety of drivers at a busy junction.

She said: “The appeal property is in a busy area where there are widespread parking restrictions and many of the dwellings do not have off-street parking. There thus appears to be a high demand for on-street spaces.

“The proposed development would result in a small increase in the number of vehicles requiring parking spaces in the vicinity.

“Even so, it would increase the hazard on the local road network, and reduce its efficient use, by resulting in more drivers searching for a parking space.

“The proposed development would not make sufficient provision for parking or for a turning area.

“It would thus be detrimental to safety and the efficient use of the highway in the immediate area.”

The proposed development would need spaces for five car parking spaces.

However, Ms Worden said she it was unclear how many spaces were allocated to the property.

She said: “There are no parking spaces marked out and it is not clear how many cars can reasonably be parked there at the moment, taking into account that vehicles should be able to enter or leave each parking space even if other parking spaces are occupied.

“It is possible that three or even four parked cars would fit within the space without blocking each other in.

“They could not, however, turn and leave the parking area in a forward gear.

“Those parking at the existing HMO are likely to have to reverse out at the moment.

“Nonetheless, if the proposal necessitated additional such manoeuvres these would be harmful to the safety of pedestrians and other road users.”

Source: Wrexham

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Concerns residents would be ‘crammed’ into proposed HMO

Concerns have been raised over plans for up to eight people to live in a small terraced house in Wrexham.

An application has been entered to convert the property on Park Street in Rhosddu into a five-bedroom house in multiple occupation (HMO).

Objections have been raised by several neighbours who fear that tenants would be ‘crammed in’ and may include substance abusers.

Wrexham Council’s highways department said it was also against the scheme because it did not include enough parking spaces.

However, the authority’s head of environment and planning has backed the proposals for approval.
In a report, Lawrence Isted said: “I am satisfied that this proposal would not result in an over concentration of HMOs in the immediate locality.

“The site is also in a highly sustainable location within easy reach of all public transport options and in an area where reliance upon the motor car should not be encouraged

“Licensed HMOs are subject to conditions that require landlords to take all reasonable steps for the satisfactory management and maintenance of good physical standards of HMOs.

“There are also conditions requiring the licence holder to prevent anti-social behaviour.

“There are no planning or housing regulatory reasons why a HMO proposal should be refused on the grounds of any particular type of person occupying the property.”

Mr Isted said he acknowledged concerns about the impact of traffic on the narrow one way street.

Due to its restricted width, he said cars often resort to driving along the footpath.

However, he added that most people who use the road show caution.

The proposals will be considered by Wrexham Council’s planning committee on Monday 7 January.

Source: Wrexham

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Agent who let out ‘fire hazard’ room in HMO is told to pay over £32,000

An agent who let a tiny room behind a kitchen to a tenant has been ordered to pay more than £32,000.

Viviane Almieda, of My London Services, in Willesden, pleaded guilty to breaching HMO licensing conditions, including failing to comply with the council’s amenity and space standards as well as obstructing the council’s investigation, in Willesden Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

She ignored warnings from Brent Council enforcement officers that a room behind the kitchen was not safe to rent out because it was a fire hazard.

The room in a converted three-bedroom property also measured less than 6.5 square metres – the minimum legal requirement for a single bedroom.

Cllr Eleanor Southwood, cabinet member for housing and welfare reform, said: “Housing tenants in rooms that are too small and hazardous to fire risks is illegal. There’s no excuse for it.

“Landlords, agencies or sub-letters who exploit tenants will pay heavily in court. Every resident in Brent has the right to a decent standard of living.”

Almieda was handed a £30,000 fine plus ordered to pay £2,090 in court costs and a £170 victim surcharge.

Source: Property Industry Eye

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Understanding HMOs…

If you have at least three tenants living in a property and they share a toilet, bathroom or kitchen facility, then the property is a House in Multiple Occupation (HMO). This means that special rules will apply to the property and it may need to be licensed by the council if it has three storeys or more with five or more occupants. Though it should be noted that local authorities do have the power to impose additional HMO Licensing on other, smaller types of HMOs.

THERE ARE SOME EXCEPTIONS, THOUGH…

Certain types of properties are exempt from licensing. Examples include:

• Two-person flat shares, which is a property that is lived in by no more than two ‘households’ each of which consists of one person.
• A property where the landlord and their household lives with up to two tenants
• Buildings occupied entirely by freeholders or long leaseholders

WHAT IF I HAVE A FLAT?

Flats have special provisions and a block of converted self-contained flats will not require an HMO licence, and a block of purpose-built flats can’t be an HMO as a block, but as individual flats can fall into the HMO category.

DOES IT MATTER HOW MANY OCCUPANTS LIVE IN THE PROPERTY?

Yes, any part of a building that is occupied by two people cannot be an HMO. For the property to meet HMO requirements, there must be at least three people involved.

IS THERE A SIMPLE WAY OF IDENTIFYING AN HMO?

In short, if your property includes the sharing of a toilet, washing and cooking facilities by three or more unrelated people in two or more separate ‘households’, which can be formed by just one person, then it’s likely that the property is an HMO.

If your property is in a block of converted self-contained flats, or mixed accommodation, and there are three unrelated people living there, it can still be an HMO despite there not always being a sharing of the washing and cooking facilities.

NEW RULES FOR HMO PROPERTIES

From October 2018, professional landlords investing in HMOs will need their properties to meet a new level of standards:

The new HMO rules are covered by The Licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) and can be read here. This was agreed by parliament on February 23rd and will come into effect across England this year on the 1 October 2018.

Under the new rules, bedrooms must be a certain size, with double bedrooms being at least 10.22m2 and bedrooms for under 10s at least 4.64m2. If the bedrooms are smaller than this, they cannot be used as sleeping accommodation.

The new rules will also see the definition of an HMO changing, with more landlords needing HMO licences and smaller properties also needing a licence.

Don’t let this put you off if you are thinking of investing into this market – HMOs can still attract higher yields than other types of buy-to-let investment properties and, if you are considering entering the market, using a mortgage broker that has access to a wide panel of specialist lenders is imperative.

Source: Property Forum

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Southampton could see 10,000 HMO homes by 2023

SOUTHAMPTON is expected to see more than 10,000 HMO licensed homes in the city by 2023, after civic chiefs gave the go-ahead to extend the scheme by another five years.

Since its inception in 2013, the legislation, which covers homes in Bevois, Bargate, Portswood, and Swaythling wards, has resulted in 4,800 licences being issued.

Now, the authority estimates up to 5,500 more homes will require licensing over the next five years.

Council leaders have branded the HMO (House in Multiple Occupation) legislation, which allows three or more occupants from different families to live together, “much needed” and a “huge success”.

Student houses are one of the main users of the licence.

The council also says the scheme has dealt with issues of poor property conditions, bad management and anti-social behaviour.

Steven Hayes-Arter, HMO licensing manager at the council, said: “This ensures safe, good quality private rented accommodation is available to meet housing needs in the city.

“The scheme has enabled that concerns and complaints about conditions and the impact of the property on the local community can be addressed effectively and promptly, such as noise nuisance and anti-social behaviour.

“The numbers of complaints about HMOs have fallen since the additional scheme was introduced in 2013.”

When it was first proposed in 2013, the plans were hit with heavy resistance from opposition councillors.

But civic chiefs pushed them through regardless, which they say was the “right thing to do”.

Former housing chief at the council, Councillor Warwick Payne, said: “At the time, it seemed quite a radical idea. Now it is seen as the norm.

“We had resistance to it in 2013, but this time around we have seen much less, which shows that it has been successful.”

Council leader Chris Hammond added: “Despite changes to the way HMOs are regarded, this is still needed in these areas.

“The impact it has had on these neighbourhoods has helped our communities for the better.”

It is estimated that there are between 6000-7000 HMOs in the city but not all HMOs require licensing.

Source: Daily Mail

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Goodbye HMOs, hello Flats?

There has been a trend for some time now for converting HMOs back in to single-let properties. Why?

Well, many landlords report that the HMO market in some cities and towns is completely saturated – and they are absolutely right.

For a long time now I have advised people to be very careful when acquiring or developing a HMO. It must be in the right area, there must be a constant demand, and the rental price of a room must be significantly higher than the rental price of a one bed flat.

If not, be warned that you may find yourself with a very difficult under-performing property investment. Add to this the increased regulation in the HMO market and hopefully you can see why investing in HMO’s could have had its day… Certainly outside of its traditional demand areas.

The HMO market has developed rapidly in the past decade and has served a market demand, but rest assured it is now under attack.

For evidence let’s just look at the student market. The institutional investor has entered the student market on a large scale, creating high spec purpose built blocks of rooms, supported by universities and preferred by parents – especially the parents of oversees students.

Consequently, the private landlord letting to students has found their market disrupted massively. In Hull and York this has led to an oversupply of nearly 300 student properties in each area, in turn to many landlords turning their properties back to standard residential lets.

Others have had no choice but to compete in the much more competitive ‘professional’ HMO market, targeting regular workers. This is creating on over-supply in this market too, driving down room rates. And when the room rates hit the same level as a one-bed flat rate… then suddenly tenants start to reconsider their position and letting preferences.

My view on this is relatively simple. HMO’s have their place in big cities, student areas and areas where there is an abundant supply of low income workers (look out for large distribution sheds and companies such as Amazon). When investing you need to choose your location wisely – and check for signs of saturation in the market. Look for Article 4s, get information from the council on multi-lets, and scour spare room and rent a room portals for the number of ads from an area, take-up and turnover of rooms.

For the savvy investor, though, this does represent an opportunity.

If you can identify areas with saturated HMO markets, then you can be certain that the demand for one-bed flats or studios will be there – and will be growing.

It’s worth looking at those areas and consider converting any existing HMOs into studio flats, or acquiring properties to develop into flats to serve the new market.

Source: Simple Landlords Insurance

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Refinancing buy to let mortgages likely as HMO changes near

A buy to let mortgage firm says it’s likely that there will be a spike in refinancing enquiries as landlords meet a new deadline for HMOs.

A raft of changes come into effect in October, including:

– Introduction of minimum room sizes: rooms used for sleeping by one adult must be a minimum of 6.51 square metres; bedrooms shared by two adults must be at least 10.22 square metres;

– Bedrooms occupied by children of 10 years or younger must be at least 4.64 square metres;

– Local authorities have the discretion to increase minimum room sizes if they wish.

In addition:

– HMOs occupied by five or more people, must have an appropriate mandatory licence, regardless of how many storeys the property covers;

– Purpose-built flats with up to two flats in the block, require mandatory HMO licensing;

– Landlords must obtain a mandatory license if the property is occupied by persons living in two or more separate households.

Penalties for running an unlicensed HMO or for failing to meet the required licensing standards, set by the relevant local authority, could see landlords face unlimited fines.

But the implications of failing to meet local authority licensing standards on an HMO property could impact future funding claims Andrew Turner, chief executive at Commercial Trust Limited.

“More landlords will be required to bring their HMO properties up to local authority licensing standards. In scenarios where perhaps one bedroom in the property fails to meet minimum licensing standards, there could be future implications, if the landlord wants to remortgage the property.

“Investors looking to remortgage may find that a lender will only base rental stress calculations on rental income from the bedrooms that do meet local licensing rules. That could make obtaining the required level of financing a lot tougher.”

Source: Letting Agent Today

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“Over concentration of HMOs within the immediate locality” sees plans for former office space refused

Plans to convert “dilapidated” and “eyesore” office space in Wrexham into a HMO have been refused.

The application for Unit C on Maesgwyn Road had been submitted to Wrexham Council in April 2018.

Previously the offices were home to the Wrexham tram depot before being used as a bus depot. In recent years it has been used as a garage and repair shop. However they have since been vacant for a number of years and have been subject to vandalism

Under the plans put forward to Wrexham Council it had been proposed the office space was converted into a six bedroomed House of Multiple Occupancy (HMO).

In the initial application documents, the applicants stated: “We feel this planning application should be looked favourably upon as the intention to provide additional accommodation within the town centre ideally suited to young professional’s seeking work or employment in the area.

“The building is prominent to existing dwellings and is currently in a dilapidated state where vandals have targeted windows and walls within the building.

“At present the building is an eyesore to local residents, by allowing this conversion to take place the building will be revamped and be a secure building ensuring vandalism won’t occur.

“By allowing us to convert the existing offices to provide a HMO we are retaining the existing characteristics of the building, reducing its impact on the current parking arrangements and ensuring parking issues aren’t magnified should the unit be refurbished as an office.”

However a delegated decision made by the council’s head of environment and planning has seen the application refused due to an “increase in the over concentration of HMOs” in the area.

A decision notice published by the head of environment and planning states: “The proposed development would increase the over concentration of HMOs within the immediate locality to the detriment of the social fabric of the area and the amenity of the existing residents.

“Adequate onsite private open space is not provided which would be to the detriment of the future occupiers of the development and to allow the development would be contrary to Policy H4 c) and d) of the adopted Wrexham Unitary Development Plan and Local Planning Guidance Note No. 5 “Houses in Multiple Occupation”.

Source: Wrexham