Every privately rented home in 14 Croydon wards needs a licence from 25 September, at £800 for five years. Ward list, fees, discounts and deadlines.

From 25 September, every privately rented home in 14 of Croydon’s 28 wards will need a council licence, and every smaller house in multiple occupation anywhere in the borough will need one too. Both schemes run for five years. (Croydon Council, about our new housing licensing schemes)

The council set out the enforcement side of it on 6 August, when it announced that Cabinet had approved a new housing private rented sector enforcement policy. The policy pulls the council’s separate housing enforcement policies into one document and sets out when it will offer advice, when it will issue legal notices, and when it will move to financial penalties or legal action. Around a third of homes in Croydon are privately rented. (Croydon Council newsroom, 6 August 2026)

“Whilst most landlords in Croydon provide good quality homes for their tenants, we know there are some who ignore their responsibilities and fail to provide the standard of housing that residents deserve,” Executive Mayor Jason Perry said in the announcement. “We will not hesitate to use our enforcement powers where poor housing standards put tenants at risk, whilst backing the responsible landlords who are doing the right thing.”

The 14 wards

Selective licensing covers every privately rented property in these wards: Addiscombe East, Addiscombe West, Bensham Manor, Broad Green, Fairfield, Norbury and Pollards Hill, Norbury Park, Selhurst, South Croydon, South Norwood, Thornton Heath, Waddon, West Thornton and Woodside. (Croydon Council, selective licensing scheme 2026)

That is half the borough’s 28 wards, but it is not half of its rented housing. When the schemes were approved in March the council put the coverage at around 72.5% of Croydon’s private rented sector, because the 14 wards are the ones where renting is most concentrated. (Croydon Council newsroom, 27 March 2026)

The second scheme, additional HMO licensing, has no ward boundary at all. It applies borough wide to smaller houses in multiple occupation, meaning a property lived in by three or more people from two or more households, where the property is not already covered by mandatory HMO licensing. Purley, Coulsdon, Sanderstead, Selsdon, Shirley and Kenley are outside the selective scheme, but a shared house in any of them is inside the HMO one. (Croydon Council, additional HMO licensing scheme 2026)

Properties already licensed as mandatory or additional HMOs are outside the selective scheme, as are homes managed by registered social landlords, properties under a management order, those with a temporary exemption, and tenancies exempt under the Housing Act 2004 or the Selective Licensing Order 2006.

What a licence costs

Croydon selective licence fees: five-year licence £800 (Part A £480 plus Part B £320), one-year licence £544, with discounts of £50 for EPC B or above, £100 for accredited landlords and £100 off Part A for multi-dwelling applications
Chart by Croydon Today.

A five-year selective licence costs £800, set out in two parts: Part A of £480 and Part B of £320. A one-year licence costs £544, made up of the same £480 Part A and a £64 Part B. (Croydon Council, licence fees and discounts)

Three discounts are available, all off the standard fee. A property with an EPC rating of B or above takes £50 off Part B, bringing a five-year licence to £750. Landlords or agents accredited with the LLAS, NRLA, UKALA, ARLA, RICS or Safeagent take £100 off Part B, bringing it to £700. A multi-dwelling discount takes £100 off Part A for each property after the first, where several properties are in common ownership and management control and meet the council’s contiguity requirement, again bringing each to £700.

The discounts are not unconditional. The council says they are not available if it has had to ask twice or more for additional documents to be supplied with an application, or if it has already served a warning letter about an unlicensed property. In other words, the cheap route is the early, complete application.

To apply you will need a current gas safety certificate where one applies, an electrical installation condition report, and proof of address for the licence holder if that is an individual. (Croydon Council, applying for a licence)

The start date has moved

When Cabinet approved the two designations in March, the council said both schemes would come into effect on 1 September 2026. The scheme pages and the 6 August enforcement announcement now give 25 September 2026 for both. If you have a date in a diary from the spring, it is three weeks out.

What it means for you

If you rent in one of the 14 wards, nothing changes in your tenancy on 25 September, but your landlord takes on a legal obligation, and the new enforcement policy is the document that says what the council will do when that obligation is ignored: advice, a legal notice, a financial penalty or court action, depending on the case. If you think your home is an unlicensed HMO, GOV.UK advises asking the council whether it is licensed, and says you may be able to reclaim some of your rent by applying to a tribunal where a large HMO has been let unlicensed. (GOV.UK, private renting: houses in multiple occupation)

If you are a landlord in one of the 14 wards, the deadline is the letting, not the date: from 25 September a property in scope must be licensed to be let. Applications open over the summer, and the discount rules reward getting the paperwork right first time, so the gas certificate and the EICR are the two documents worth chasing now rather than in late September.

If you let a shared house anywhere in Croydon, including in Purley, Coulsdon, Selsdon or Shirley, check the three-people-two-households test before assuming the ward list lets you off. The HMO scheme has no geographic limit.

For more Croydon information, see our guides to council tax bands, house prices across the borough and planning applications.

Sources

Image: Terrace of cottages, Melfort Road, Thornton Heath by Christopher Hilton, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Chart by Croydon Today.