HMO Compliance Check London — £250 Pre-Inspection Audit

Three common triggers: a council inspection notice has landed, you have just acquired the property and need to verify the previous owner's compliance, or you are entering a borough licensing renewal cycle and want to fix anything before the council inspector arrives. Portfolio landlords typically run an audit annually on every property regardless of trigger.

An EICR only tests the fixed electrical installation. The compliance check goes wider: fire-safety system, written FRA review, gas certificate validity, room-size measurements against Schedule 4, the means of escape, the management-plan paperwork, and the Management of HMOs Regulations 2006 duties. The EICR is one of about a dozen items on the list.

The audit report is a contractor pre-inspection — it is not a council inspection. But the format is council-ready: prioritised action list, photographs, regulatory citations, and quoted remedials. Several London boroughs accept it as part of a voluntary compliance file when landlords are working toward a licensing application.

We tell you straight away on site. If the defect is dangerous (live exposed conductors, fire-alarm failure, blocked escape route) you are notified before we leave. Quoted remedial works land with the written report within 48 hours. You are under no obligation to use us for the remedials — but most landlords do because we already know the property.

Yes — our £195 council-inspection support visit covers attending the inspection with you and responding to officer queries in person. Officers tend to ask follow-up questions on the fire-alarm certificate format, the FRA methodology and the EICR schedule of test results. Having the engineer who issued them on site keeps the inspection brief.

Typically 2–3 hours for a standard 5- or 6-bedroom HMO. Larger HMOs (7+ rooms or bedsit layouts) push to 4 hours. We work around tenant schedules and never need the property vacant — most of the audit is communal-area, consumer unit and documentation review.

Our £295 pre-acquisition compliance survey is the same audit framed for purchase decisions. It flags compliance liabilities you would otherwise inherit on completion — out-of-date EICR, missing FRA, room sizes below Schedule 4, unauthorised conversion work. Several investors have used the survey to renegotiate price or walk away from a deal.

The £250 compliance check is a diagnostic. The £400 licensing assistance is application support — completing the council form, assembling the evidence pack, council liaison until issuance. Many landlords run the compliance check first, fix anything red, then move onto the licensing application service. The £250 is offset against the £400 if you book both within 30 days.

Most existing licences run on a 5-year cycle. If you are mid-term and there have been no material changes (no new tenants, no building work, no manager change) the audit is not urgent. Where the council is approaching the property for renewal inspection or you have changed manager mid-term, the audit is the cheapest way to surface issues before the council finds them.

Yes — we run a scaled-down version of the same audit for single-family lets in selective-licensing boroughs (Newham, Croydon, Brent, Waltham Forest, plus designated wards in Hackney, Lambeth, Lewisham and others). The fee is £195 because the scope is narrower — no fire-alarm-grade certification, no Schedule 4 measurements.