Paul Endacott said: “Renters deserve housing that is both affordable and safe, and right now, an awful lot of them are being asked to choose between the two.”
Paul Endacott, property expert at 1st Avenue, said houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) could leave renters with fewer safe, legal options.
This comes as data showed planning refusals for HMOs have more than doubled since 2021.
Endacott said: “What we’re seeing here isn’t really a story about landlords versus councils, it’s a story about where people are actually going to live when the legal, regulated options start disappearing.
“Every time a licensable HMO gets refused planning permission or a licence application gets turned down, that demand for a cheap room in a shared house doesn’t vanish, it just goes somewhere else.”
Analysis of 144 English councils found decided applications climbed 87% between 2021 and 2025, from 1,848 to 3,454, while refusals more than doubled, from 590 to 1,203.
Approval rates held at around 68% between 2021 and 2023, slipping to 63% in early 2026.
Article 4 directions, which remove automatic permission to convert family homes into small HMOs, have been adopted by around 75 to 80 English local authorities.
Endacott added: “The uncomfortable truth is that somewhere else is often less visible and less safe.
“We know from enforcement patterns over the years that when regulation tightens around larger, more visible HMOs, some operators simply shift into smaller properties or informal arrangements that fall outside a council’s usual inspection regime.
“Until local and national policy properly reconciles the demand for affordable shared housing with the drive to raise standards, we’re likely to keep seeing this tension play out.”
He said: “Renters deserve housing that is both affordable and safe, and right now, an awful lot of them are being asked to choose between the two.”