Planning and constraints
House in multiple occupation (HMO)
A property let to three or more tenants from more than one household who share facilities; licensed by the council above five occupants and often restricted by Article 4.
Also called: HMO, shared house, HMO licence.
Definition
House in multiple occupation, as the data uses it
A house shared by unrelated tenants is an HMO. Larger ones (five or more occupants) need a mandatory licence; many councils license smaller ones too, and many have Article 4 directions that require planning permission to create one.
MarketCode carries an HMO flag on the built-stock profile of an area and in the market cube's cohorts, where it is one of the grain dimensions. There is no rollup row across the flag: filtering on an "all" value matches nothing, so a question about an area rather than a cohort should aggregate or use the ranking tool.
Tools
Tools that return it
Built-stock profile of an area
area_stock_profile()Composition of the built stock in an area: unit counts, HMO share, mixed-use share, median building height and footprint, solar penetration.
Market facts for an area
market_facts()Price, rent, yield and days-on-market by geography × asset class ×
See also
Related terms
- Article 4 direction: A direction by a local planning authority withdrawing specified permitted development rights in an area, so work that is normally automatic needs a planning application.
- Market cube: MarketCode's pre-computed table of price, price per square metre and turnover for every area, asset class, bedroom band and month, with a graded decision on how much evidence sits behind each cell.
FAQ
Questions about house in multiple occupation
What does House in multiple occupation mean?
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A property let to three or more tenants from more than one household who share facilities; licensed by the council above five occupants and often restricted by Article 4.
Which MarketCode tools return house in multiple occupation?
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Built-stock profile of an area, Market facts for an area. Each runs as an MCP tool in Claude, ChatGPT, Codex and Cursor and as a REST endpoint with an API key, at the same price.
Is shared house the same thing?
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Yes. HMO, shared house, HMO licence are other names for what this entry defines; MarketCode uses "House in multiple occupation" in its tool descriptions and responses.
See it on a real address.
Thirty minutes, your property or area, every figure sourced.