Section 13 operates per tenancy, not per property. In an HMO in England let room by room, each assured tenancy needs its own Form 4A notice with its own dates and rent figure, while a joint tenancy of the whole house needs one notice. Lodgers who live with a resident landlord are usually not assured tenants, so Section 13 does not apply to them.
If you manage HMOs, the first Section 13 question is usually structural: one notice for the house, or one per room? The answer follows from what the notice attaches to. Section 13 applies to an assured tenancy, not to a building, so the number of notices matches the number of tenancies.[1] This article covers how that plays out in England's shared houses. For the wider process, see our complete guide to rent reviews under the Act.
Does Section 13 apply to HMO room lets?
Yes, where the room is let on an assured tenancy, and most room lets by a non-resident landlord are. Section 13 applies to any assured tenancy apart from relevant low-cost tenancies in the social sector.[1] A tenancy is assured where a dwelling in England is let as a separate dwelling to an individual, or to joint tenants who are individuals, and at least one of them occupies it as their only or principal home.[2]
Shared kitchens and bathrooms do not break that. Where a tenant has exclusive occupation of a room and shares other accommodation with people other than the landlord, section 3 of the Housing Act 1988 deems the room a dwelling-house let on an assured tenancy.[3] So a standard HMO room let, sole use of the room plus shared use of the rest, is an assured tenancy, and a rent increase on it runs through a Section 13 notice on Form 4A like any other.[3][7] The form itself is covered in What is a Section 13 notice (Form 4A)?
One thing licensing does not do is change the rent mechanism. Whether the property needs an HMO licence turns on headcounts and households; how you increase the rent turns on the tenancy structure.[8][1]
How many notices does an HMO need?
Count the tenancies, not the bedrooms.[1]
| Setup | Tenancies | Section 13 notices |
|---|---|---|
| Five rooms let on five separate agreements | Five | One Form 4A per room tenancy |
| Whole house let to five joint tenants | One | One Form 4A covering the single rent |
| Lodger sharing with a resident landlord | Usually none that are assured | None, Section 13 does not apply |
In a room-by-room HMO, each tenancy has its own rent, its own start date, and its own increase history, so each gets its own Form 4A completed with that tenancy's figures.[1][6] The form asks for the tenant's name, the current rent and payment frequency, the tenancy start date, and the dates of previous increases, all of which differ room to room.[6]
A joint tenancy of the whole house is one tenancy with one rent, so it takes one notice naming the joint tenants, and the proposed figure is the tenancy's single rent rather than a per-person share.[2][6]
Setups drift as rooms turn over, so check what each occupier actually holds before you count notices. The agreements decide, not the front door.
When does Section 13 not apply in a shared house?
The main carve-out is the live-in landlord. A tenancy is generally not assured where the dwelling forms part of a building that is not a purpose-built block of flats, the landlord occupied another dwelling in that building as their only or principal home when the tenancy was granted, and a resident landlord has remained throughout.[4] No assured tenancy means no Section 13.[1]
Many lodgers do not hold a tenancy at all. An arrangement where the occupier shares accommodation with a landlord who lives in the property as their only or principal home is an excluded tenancy or licence under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977.[5] Either way the practical answer is the same: a lodger's rent changes according to whatever the agreement between the parties says, not through Form 4A.
This matters for agents who manage a mixed book. A four-bed HMO with a non-resident landlord is four Section 13 workflows; the same house with the owner living in it may support none.
How do the timing rules work across an HMO?
Per tenancy, like everything else. Each assured tenancy carries its own date tests: at least two months' notice, a new rent starting on the first day of that tenancy's rent period, and at least 52 weeks since the tenancy's first period began or since its last increase took effect, which becomes 53 weeks in any year where 52 would fall more than six days before the anniversary of the reference date on that tenancy's notice. That anti-drift rule applies room by room, so the clocks in a shared house do not slide apart.[1][6]
In a room-by-room HMO those clocks rarely line up. Rooms are let at different times, so a five-room house can hold five different review windows, five rent-period start days, and five service deadlines. Two consequences follow.
- You cannot pull the whole house onto one review date without waiting out the newest tenancy's clock, because no increase can take effect within a tenancy's first 52 weeks.[1]
- Each notice needs its own provable service, one per tenancy. The options are covered in Ways to serve a Section 13 notice.
A missed window on one room delays that room's increase without affecting the others. The timing mechanics are covered in How often can a landlord increase rent?, and the form itself field by field in our Form 4A guide.
What evidence supports a room rent increase?
The benchmark is the same as for any assured tenancy: if the tenant refers the figure to the First-tier Tribunal, the tribunal determines the rent the letting might reasonably be expected to achieve in the open market, and the test is market value, not a set percentage.[10] What that means in practice is covered in How much can a landlord increase rent?
Government guidance on tribunal applications points to evidence from similar nearby properties of similar size, features, and location, and notes that actual agreed lettings carry more weight than advertised listings.[9] For a room tenancy, read that at room level: comparable room lets in the area, matched on room size, shared facilities, and condition, speak more directly to the figure than whole-house rents.
Inclusive bills need particular care. Room rents in HMOs often bundle utilities, and Form 4A asks for a table of any charges included in the rent, current and proposed, covering council tax, water, fuel, communication services, and fixed service charges.[6] An inclusive room rent compared against a bills-excluded advert is not like for like, so record what every figure includes. The full method, from comparables to condition notes, is in What evidence supports a rent increase?, with index context in the ONS rent index explained.
MarketRent runs rent reviews per tenancy, which is exactly the shape an HMO book needs: each room tenancy tracked with its own review date, the Section 13 notice generated on Form 4A, dates blocked when they fail the 52-week rule, the rent-period start, or the notice length, and every step documented from proposal to outcome.
This article is general information for letting agents in England, not legal advice.
Sources
- Housing Act 1988, section 13 (as amended)
- Housing Act 1988, section 1
- Housing Act 1988, section 3
- Housing Act 1988, Schedule 1
- Protection from Eviction Act 1977, section 3A
- Form 4A, landlord's notice proposing a new rent for assured tenancies in the private rented sector (GOV.UK)
- Guide to the Renters' Rights Act, GOV.UK (MHCLG)
- House in multiple occupation licence, GOV.UK
- Apply for an open market rent determination, GOV.UK
- Housing Act 1988, section 14 (as amended)