One company, one agreement, one point of contact.

Two kinds of owner, two conversations

If you already own a licensed house in multiple occupation, the company takes the licence, the occupiers, the compliance and the liability, and you keep the rent. The moment this usually makes sense is when a licence is coming up for renewal and you are deciding whether to carry on.

If you own an ordinary family property where the use can lawfully be changed, the company converts it at its own cost. The fire doors, the mains linked alarm system, the emergency lighting and the electrical remedials behind a satisfactory installation condition report stay with the building at the end of the term.

What the company takes on

The property is let to the company on a lease. The company then applies for the house in multiple occupation licence in its own name, commissions the fire risk assessment and the electrical report, carries out the works the assessment calls for, complies with the management regulations, deals with the occupiers and handles the repairs. There are no fees of any kind: no tenant-find fee, no management fee, no renewal fee and no commission.

Rent, term and the repairing split are agreed property by property and written into the lease before anything is signed. Every lease carries a break exercisable within twelve months. The company pays a fixed rent against income that varies, so the break is the protection that makes the structure safe rather than a point to be traded away.

Where the property is let on to a supported accommodation provider rather than used for temporary accommodation, that provider stands as landlord to the occupiers and the company remains your tenant. Your agreement, your rent and your point of contact do not change.

Why the compliance obligation is worth moving

Since 1 May 2026 the exposure reaches the owner as well as the operator, and it is now criminal as well as civil. Section 105 of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 substituted section 72(1) of the Housing Act 2004 so that the offence of controlling or managing an unlicensed house in multiple occupation reaches a superior landlord. Section 103 made a rent repayment order available against a superior landlord, and new section 46A of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 requires landlords to be jointly and severally liable where an order is made against more than one of them. New section 72(4C) of the Housing Act 2004 removes the defence that a term in the head lease about occupation is enough on its own.

The practical effect for an owner who lets to an operator is that a failure further down the chain, an unlicensed house in multiple occupation being the obvious one, reaches back. A clause in the lease no longer answers it. Evidence does, which is why the compliance file rather than the rent figure is what opens the conversation.

What the Act does not reach while the property is let to a company

Assured shorthold tenancies ended on 1 May 2026 for new and existing private tenancies, and with them the section 21 route to possession. An owner letting to an individual now holds a tenant with open ended security who can be removed only on a proved statutory ground. A company cannot be an assured tenant, because section 1(1)(a) of the Housing Act 1988 requires an assured tenant to be an individual, so a lease to the company sits outside the regime that changed and ends on a defined date. No occupier holds from you, so no rent challenge and no possession claim is yours to deal with.

What the company sends you

A compliance pack on completion of the works, holding the licence, the fire risk assessment and sign-off, the electrical installation condition report, the gas safety record, the insurance schedule and the inspection log. After that, a one page summary each quarter showing what is current, what expires within ninety days and what has been done to the property, sent without being asked for.

What is needed from you

Four things, all obtained before the company proceeds and none of them taken on your word. Written consent from your lender to let and to sublet, checked against the mortgage conditions. The same in writing from any superior landlord where your own title is leasehold. Written acknowledgement from your buildings insurer of the occupancy and the subletting. Consent to carry out the conversion works, where the property is one being converted.

What the company is looking for

Three to five bedroom properties. On the temporary accommodation side that means at least four lettable rooms once the communal room is taken out, since that room cannot be let. On the supported accommodation side the number is set by the provider, and three to five is what the published evidence shows that market asks for.

Four physical points matter more than they look, because they decide what a conversion costs: cavity rather than solid wall construction, existing double glazing, an accessible loft, and a concrete or already lined ground floor. A property that needs work is not a problem. A solid walled, single glazed property is a different conversation, and the company will say so rather than discover it later.

Where a property is to be converted, both the planning position and the building control position are confirmed with the council itself before any money moves, rather than taken from published data. Authorities differ on whether converting a family property to a shared one is a material change of use for building regulations purposes, and the difference is material to what the company can pay.

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