Haringey Council claims neighbourhoods suffer from too many shared houses due to rising demand for cheap, private housing.
Many of these houses or shared properties are allegedly overcrowded, badly maintained and poorly managed, while some tenants cause noise, rubbish and parking problems.
Councillors claim many of the problems relate to smaller family houses converted into HMOs without any need to apply for permission or meet any safety standards.
The council wants to introduce additional HMO licensing in Tottenham that will require landlords to register homes shared by three to five tenants.
The scheme is open for consultation and no starting date is yet set.
Nilgun Canver, Haringey’s cabinet member for the environment, said: "We believe that the use of additional HMO licensing, with incentives for good landlords, is the best tool to tackle the worst type of accommodation within the borough.
"Licensing allows us to use our powers to confront the worst offenders and focus activity and resources effectively on those who require it.
"This scheme puts the onus on the landlord to tell the council about their HMOs so we can create a comprehensive database of all shared houses within the designated area and check for overcrowding and all the other areas of concern.”
Additional licensing will cover:
• Northumberland Park
• Bruce Grove
• Tottenham Hale
• Tottenham Green
• Seven Sisters
The council reckons around 3000 HMOs are within the proposed additional licensing area.
The council picks up more than 40% of HMO complaints from these neighbourhoods, and Suspects 69% of these shared homes fail to meet safety standards.
The licensing fee will be set at £208.
Full information about the consultation and additional licensing scheme is online at the council’s web site.
The consultation close on October 10, 2013.
