Council officials fear the number of registered houses of multiple occupation (HMOs) in North Herts is "just scratching the surface" of the true figure.

Steve Cobb, licensing and community safety manager, made the comments at a North Herts Council licensing and regulation committee meeting this week (Monday, October 14).

At the meeting, councillors suggested the authority should ask residents to report any unregistered HMOs near them, and Cllr Sean Prendergast (LD, Letchworth South West) said a similar appeal should be made to HMO landlords.

In 2023/24, there were 34 registered HMOs in North Herts – down from 41 in 2021/22.

HMOs are properties that are rented out to five or more unrelated tenants, and require a licence to operate. Running an unlicensed HMO can result in a criminal conviction, an unlimited fine, and/or a rent repayment order.

The issue of unlicensed HMOs was raised by Cllr Ian Albert (Lab, Hitchin Bearton), who described it as a "real problem". Mr Cobb said he has a council officer working on "what we don't know", and keeping an eye on "a number of specific websites where you can look at renting properties".

He continued: "The difficulty we have – I'm not looking for excuses – [is that] we have no right of entry into a residential property unless we have grounds to genuinely believe it's a HMO, in which case we could get a court warrant.

"When properties have been brought to our attention before, and we've knocked on the door and said 'we're here because we believe you're an HMO', there was one instance where they said 'yes we are, sorry, what do we need to do', and we got them licensed.

"So yes, we can be more proactive in that area and hopefully you'll see in next year's annual report that the number of HMOs has gone up because there are undoubtedly more out there than the stats currently say."

Cllr Prendergast raised the idea of appealing to residents to help the council find unlicensed HMOs. He said: "I suspect a lot of residents are aware of HMOs but don't necessarily know to report it, or that they need to be licensed.

"We need to find a way of working collaboratively to find out that information, whether it be with the parking team, whether it be with the community safety team. There'll be lots of snippets of information that will give us intelligence around HMOs in the district. We need to find a way of joining that up so we can locate more HMOs."

In response, Mr Cobb said the council "normally" finds out about unlicensed HMOs from "members of the public complaining about excessive parking in the area".

Cllr Tim Johnson backed Cllr Prendergast's idea, saying he thought it would "resonate" with residents.

Cllr Prendergast also said the council could appeal to HMO owners who are "perhaps none the wiser that they need to be licensed. I suspect there's probably a fair quantity of them," he added.

In North Herts, it costs £845 for a new HMO licence, lasting five years, and the council says anybody applying for one should make the application at least three months before they begin operating.