Waltham Forest: all three licensing schemes, 20 of 22 wards
Waltham Forest runs mandatory, additional and selective licensing simultaneously. Selective licensing has applied since 1 May 2025 across 20 of the borough's 22 wards - everywhere except Hatch Lane/Highams Park (North) and Endlebury - and additional HMO licensing is borough-wide with no exclusions at all. Between them, virtually every private let in the borough needs a licence.
Being in an excluded ward doesn't mean you're exempt
This is the mistake to avoid. The two wards outside the selective designation are outside selective licensing only. Additional HMO licensing is borough-wide, so a property in Endlebury or Hatch Lane let to three or more unrelated tenants still needs an HMO licence. The selective scheme covers properties let to one individual, a single family, or two unrelated sharers - the moment you have a third sharer you're in a different scheme, not out of licensing.
Flats in purpose-built blocks are caught too
The additional scheme expressly includes multiple-occupied flats in purpose-built blocks of more than two flats where more than three people live there - a category that escapes mandatory HMO licensing nationally and that plenty of landlords assume is outside licensing entirely. Licences run up to five years, but the council issues shorter terms where there is non-compliance or an outstanding planning breach.
The EPC discount is the biggest in London
A selective licence is £895 as standard, paid in two parts - Part A with the application and Part B on grant, neither refundable. An EPC rated C brings it to £800; an EPC rated A or B brings it to £600. Additional HMO licences are £1,200 standard, £800 with an EPC of A or B. There's also a £125-per-dwelling multi-property discount where dwellings are adjacent or in the same block under common ownership and applied for together. Discounts are withdrawn entirely if the council had to investigate your failure to licence in the first place.
Check the expiry date the council gives you
Waltham Forest's own pages have carried differing end dates for the additional HMO designation, so treat the date on your licence and the current scheme page as authoritative rather than anything you noted down previously. Letting an unlicensed licensable property risks an unlimited fine on conviction, and a rent repayment order in favour of your tenants.
Verify your ward, scheme and fee via Waltham Forest's property licensing schemes and fees pages, and its public register of licensed properties. Illustrative guide - designations and fees 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): 20 of 22 wards, to 30 Apr 2030. 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.