Birmingham’s Labour-led council is to introduce a city-wide Article 4 Direction from June, which means a planning application must be submitted for proposals to convert family houses to small HMOs.

Specifically this means consent is required to change a family house (C3 use class) to a small House in Multiple Occupation accommodating between three and six people (C4 use class).

Last year the authority undertook a six-week period to publicise the city-wide direction.

Now the direction has been given the go ahead and a statement from the council says: “If you are the landlord of an existing small HMO, we are asking that you declare this to us and provide details of the address of the property and any evidence to show that it is an existing HMO.”

It continues: “This will ensure that we have as much information as possible about existing HMOs in the city before the Article 4 Direction becomes enforceable. The process for declaring existing HMOs will remain open until the Article 4 Direction comes in to force on Monday 8 June 2020.”