Dudley: HMO licensing, a borough-wide Article 4, and gaps in the detail
Dudley requires a licence for every HMO with five or more occupants, but publishes no current fee figure, no licence term and no public HMO register. A borough-wide Article 4 direction has applied since September 2023, so small HMO conversions need planning permission first, which is a separate test from licensing.
What the council does say
Dudley is a metropolitan borough, so one council covers housing, licensing and planning. All HMOs with five or more occupants must be licensed. An application must include a floor plan showing room sizes, bathroom, toilet, kitchen, smoke alarms, emergency lighting and fire doors, plus gas safety, electrical test, fire alarm and emergency lighting certificates. An application without the floor plan is treated as invalid. Completed forms go to the Housing Enforcement Team at Council House, Priory Road, Dudley DY1 1HF, and an invoice for the fee is raised once the form is received.
What is not published
No current HMO licence fee figure, no licence term, no renewal or instalment arrangement and no public register of licensed HMOs appear on any page reachable from the council's site, and there is no route to check your own licence status online. The directory of fees and charges confirms fees effective from 1 April 2026, but its HMO line could not be read from outside the site, so the fee and its fee year are UNVERIFIED - could not confirm on council website. Ask the Housing Enforcement Team for the current figure in writing before budgeting, and do not rely on last year's number.
Whether Dudley operates selective or additional licensing is unproven rather than settled. No designation page, public notice or consultation document was found, and the council's private landlords and private housing pages make no reference to Part 3 licensing. Absence of a mention is not evidence of absence, so ask the council directly whether any designation, live or proposed, covers the postcode.
Enforcement signals are dated. The landlord pages link to the Dudley Civil Penalties Enforcement Guidance 2019 and a Banning Order Policy from May 2019, alongside a public register of prosecutions held under health and safety enforcement. No penalty ceiling is quoted on the pages themselves, and the guidance is now several years old, so current practice and any figure are UNVERIFIED - could not confirm on council website.
Verify current designations via Dudley Council's Private landlords, Private Housing, Private Sector Housing Enforcement, HMO Article 4 Direction and Directory of Fees and Charges pages. Illustrative guide - scheme boundaries and dates change; general information, not legal advice.
Renewal tracked from expiry, reminders from 60 days out, proof of service to tenants logged. Knows the 2-month early-renewal rule that keeps your date fixed.
Five years goes quicker than you think. Kept remembers so you don't have to - including the 28-day duty to give tenants a copy.
Expiry tracked from the certificate details you confirm - band E is the current minimum for most domestic private lets unless exempt, and proposed changes are flagged only when they become law.
30-day protection window tracked from the day the money lands - not the tenancy date - with prescribed information logged.
Check dates and follow-up dates for time-limited permissions, stored against each tenant.
Smoke alarms every storey, CO alarms where required, checked and dated at the start of every tenancy.
A one-off duty for tenancies that existed on 1 May 2026. Who was served, when, and how - the £7,000 question, answered with a dated record.
Preparation and export support for the future official registration process - clearly marked as planned.
Selective licensing (ordinary lets): UNVERIFIED - no designation found. See the local picture above - every other duty applies exactly as it does nationwide.
Add a postcode and Kept resolves the council, location and local context automatically.
Planned preparation and export support for the government's regional PRS Database rollout.