Ealing Council has launched a public consultation on plans to continue additional licensing for smaller houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) across the borough for another five years.
According to the council, over the past two years its inspectors found 4,890 housing hazards during visits to more than 900 HMOs.
The proposals would require smaller HMOs occupied by three or four unrelated people to be licensed. Most larger HMOs occupied by five or more people are already covered by mandatory national licensing.
Ealing’s current additional licensing scheme began in April 2022 and expires on 31 March 2027. The proposed replacement would run for five years from April 2027.
The council also recorded 3,649 antisocial behaviour incidents linked to known HMO properties between April 2021 and April 2026.
Since April 2025, the council has issued 28 civil penalties for unlicensed HMOs. It also said it had helped bring 56 unlicensed properties into the licensing system and created a specialist team to deal with antisocial behaviour linked to licensed properties.
The council said that in one Ealing shared flat inspected in 2023, a bed was found hidden behind curtains in a communal kitchen and living area. It said the landlord was ordered to remove the sleeping area because it posed a fire risk and gave the tenant no privacy.
Councillor Louise Brett, Ealing Council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for safe and genuinely affordable homes, said: “We know that many people rely on shared housing as an affordable place to live. But some rented HMOs fall below the standards people should expect.
“Our inspections continue to find serious hazards, unsafe conditions, and poor management in too many shared homes.”
The consultation runs until 24 September 2026 and can be found on Ealing Council’s Have Your Say website.
 across the borough for another five years.){kind=link}