This article is based upon evidence acquired from an 8-9-year experience of submitting objections to houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) for the Bullingdon Community Association, which serves two Oxford City Council wards, and which runs the Bullingdon Community Centre. Nothing in this article may be taken as the current or future view of the Bullingdon Association. Many, possibly all, disadvantages of HMOs may well apply in any location where they exist.
Why do we need high rent HMO accommodation?
Why object to HMOs? Are they not just one form of high-density accommodation for those who need it? We certainly all need homes. But no one needs private landlords, over-crowding, or high rents. Very low-cost housing is extremely scarce, everywhere it seems, and high rent properties costing 30% or more of household take-home income do not meet the social need identified by financial specialists for rent to be lower. In fact, average rents are now 36% of gross household income and 41% of take-home pay. In the present cost of living crisis, private rents, water, energy, and food bills are contributing to a continuing process of impoverishment including amongst those earning.
Measures taken by the Government which are temporary do not address key problems for the long term. The average private rent increase for the period July 2025-2026 was 4.8%. Steps to reduce the proportion of homes everywhere with high rents should be supported and welcomed, ideally with Government support for rent controls – currently being denied by central Government.
Alternatives
Oxford City Council has its own housing company which can provide homes outside the disastrous Right to Buy legislation that has been in place since 1980.
Living in a community or passing through?
From experience, we should all be concerned about those private rental properties which have high turnover of occupants and do not bring people to an area who intend to engage with the overall community, as far as can be judged. New HMOs mean more properties which local councils will struggle to monitor, even where a variety of regulations have been introduced, as in Oxford (this will be discussed in a future article on the Renters’ Rights Act).
Local councils should be able to use their powers, and with increased resources buy homes for council housing and shared ownership schemes (part-rent, part buy) for keyworkers, to provide a rising proportion of very low-cost housing in all council areas. Lower costs of housing mean people will have more money to meet their needs by spending in the local economy. Better security of tenure offers good reasons for people to remain in a community, potentially retaining their skills locally and enabling them to stay closer to relatives.
Other HMO problems
Problems with car parking and bins periodically arise from HMOs, although they are not exclusive to them. This can have implications for refuse vehicle movements and emergency vehicle journeys in communities where the long-term residents often have high average ages and significant health issues; and there may be issues of variable width of roads as well.
HMOs do not provide suitable accommodation for couples or families. There is simply not enough space or privacy in HMOs generally, making them liable to be experienced as overcrowding by those living in such properties. Living rooms may not exist; kitchens can be too small; and couples may be occupying single rooms.
Quality homes?
Suitable accommodation should include solar panels and the installation of heat pumps to protect people from fluctuating gas prices. A home in private ownership currently attracts a £9,000 grant for a heat pump, potentially making such installation less expensive than a new gas boiler. But will landlords do such installations, or ensure insulation and double glazing are of adequate standard?
HMOs and local and national skills shortages
Pressure upon hospitals in Oxford to provide more staff accommodation, and upon universities to ensure students live in dedicated accommodation rather than in ordinary residential accommodation certainly exists in Oxford.
HMOs as an environmental problem: drainage
Residents report that the drainage issues arising from HMOs, often incorporating the concreting over of front gardens for car parking, are not a material consideration in the planning process at the present time. They should be.
There is some obligation to maintain Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS) for property owners, but only of internal or private drains. Private water industry companies do not seem to be reliable agents in the maintenance of drainage where it is their responsibility.
Where councils are responsible, poor maintenance shows quickly in times of extreme rainfall with areas of roads and junctions covered in water quickly in Oxford. The Environment Agency has repeatedly had its finances cut by successive Governments. It remains to be seen if this changes markedly under the current Government. HMO owners who frequently concrete over front gardens for parking also add to impermeable surfaces, and therefore to the drainage problems in many places. Owner occupiers do also periodically add to this problem in Oxford. It is past time for a restrictive regulation on this to assist with drainage problems, e.g. requiring surfaces to be permeable long-term.
Related to the issue of how drainage is provided in our settlements, the removal of trees from house frontages by landlords makes drainage conditions worse. Also, in periods of hot weather, shade is diminished by such action. Each settlement has the risk of enhancing its ‘urban heat island’ effect if tree cover is reduced through the inadequacies of the planning process and no general Tree Preservation Act rather than just tree preservation orders – leading to higher overall temperatures in areas with few trees. Reducing trees is also an attack on habitats needed by birds; many bird species in the UK are in decline due to a variety of careless human, council, and government actions.
Greater concentrations of domicile-related vehicles
More HMOs can lead to greater numbers of residents and therefore vehicles as the local population increases. Apart from pressures generated by new homes with domiciled vehicles, more people tend to mean increasing numbers of delivery vehicles. Controlled Parking Zones (CPZ), operating for years in Oxford, are not resolving vehicle pressures. Vehicles are still being parked in the Lye Valley area despite the CPZ rules and fines which are applied by parking wardens. So, far more homes need to be designated as car-free by covenant or other arrangement. Apartments can be built around, above, or right over car parks to increase very low-cost accommodation wherever there is demand.
Neglect
The outward appearance of private rented properties can provide clear signs of neglect. One example is the failure of landlords to provide lockable side gates to improve security in these properties, particularly given the risk of bike and tool theft from sheds and garages. This can have an impact on individuals and may also place additional demands on police resources. Security measures could therefore be considered as a condition for HMOs within new licensing arrangements, alongside any other measures recommended by the police for private rented properties.
Reflections
I have already suggested a 15-year transition from a system of private landlords to only having registered social landlords with strong, enforced regulations. This could incorporate grants for heat pumps, improved insulation, and better-quality double glazing for such landlords to improve conditions for tenants. Regarding adequate space per person, apartments above the surface level of car parks could be provided with larger floor areas than are customary at present. This could include kitchens of larger size, and office space which could be for babies in their early months, or for storage. This might improve the quality of life for people previously living in more constrained private rentals or other overcrowded homes.
Clearly, rent controls must be introduced with the aim of bringing rents down, ultimately to a maximum of 20% of average household income, with further reductions over time.
Housing is an environmental as well as social issue. This means that sustainable refurbishments must be supported by enforceable regulations. Penalties should apply where refurbishment takes place without due consideration of space per person, drainage, bike and car parking issues, adequate insulation, high-quality double glazing, and appropriate doors for noise and fire protection. Our expectations of the Government to secure all the suggested measures should be as high as imaginable: low-grade housing has been a long-term issue in the UK.
With thanks to Hazel Dawe for comments.
See part two of this article for personal stories of HMO occupants.
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