Coventry runs additional HMO licensing across the whole city. It came into effect on 4 May 2025 and runs to 3 May 2030. A house let to three or four people from more than one household needs a licence, whatever the number of storeys. Nationally the mandatory threshold is five, so this scheme catches the smaller shared houses that fall below it. The designation, and the current fee, sit on Coventry City Council’s additional licensing page. Check the fee on that page before you apply, because it is set in two stages and the council updates it regularly.
Mandatory HMO licensing still applies on top, at five or more people from two or more households sharing facilities. Coventry does not run selective licensing, so an ordinary rented home let to one family is not licensable. The licence net here is about shared houses, and it starts at three.
West Midlands Fire Service will ask for the written assessment
West Midlands Fire Service is the enforcing authority for most premises in Coventry. They can inspect, serve enforcement and prohibition notices, and prosecute. They say fire risk assessments are a legal requirement for workplaces and that they cannot write yours for you. Their audit will ask whether you have a written assessment and whether the measures in it are actually in place.
The person who appoints the assessor is still the responsible person. There is no licence to write one.
The licence form does not ask for the assessment
Coventry City Council does not ask you to send a fire risk assessment with the HMO licence application. It still says in plain terms that you have to have one in place, because the law requires it. And if you apply for a two or five year licence, you have to certify that you have carried one out. So skipping it does more than leave you exposed to West Midlands Fire Service. It costs you the longer licence.
Two universities and the streets that fill with sharers
Coventry University sits in the city centre and the University of Warwick is on the south-west edge, so shared housing runs across the city rather than in one quarter. The council’s own study puts the biggest concentration in St Michael’s ward around the city centre and Hillfields, then the Canley streets in Westwood ward near Warwick, then Whoberley along Holyhead Road and Northumberland Road, and the Earlsdon side of Sherbourne. These are terraces split for students and sharers. Fire stopping between the original rooms, and between the ground floor and the bedrooms above, is what those assessments usually find missing.
Say it is a three or four person HMO when you ask for quotes, because the citywide additional licence is often why the assessment has been booked. A purpose-built student block is a different job from a converted terrace, and the two quotes should not look alike.
If you rent from a social landlord, start with them.
The additional licence and the fire risk assessment are two duties
The additional HMO licence is a housing licence from Coventry City Council. The fire risk assessment is a duty under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. You still need the written fire risk assessment. Holding the licence does not close the fire safety duty, and the duty stays whether the house has three sharers or five.
What a Coventry report should actually name
A report that could have been written for any city is not suitable and sufficient for a licensed shared house. It should say whether the property needs a licence under the citywide scheme at three or four occupants, where the storey alarms are, and what happens to the escape if the staircase is the only way out. For a purpose-built student block it should name the fire doors and the compartmentation between rooms, not “common parts” as a heading with nothing under it.
Checking an assessor in Coventry
There is no statutory register of fire risk assessors, in Coventry or anywhere else, so the checking falls to whoever signs the invoice. Ask for qualifications, professional body membership, indemnity cover and a sample report before you appoint. The full list of questions, and what a competent answer sounds like, is on what a fire risk assessment costs.
What it costs in Coventry
The building sets the price, not the postcode. A three-bedroom licensed HMO in Earlsdon is a morning. A larger house of sharers with cooking in rooms and doors onto one hall is not. Anything over 11 metres brings the fixed fire door checks with it, and that adds time before anybody writes a word. National ranges, and what moves a quote inside them, are on what a fire risk assessment costs. Ask for a fixed price against a written description of the property rather than an hourly rate.
Birmingham is the other West Midlands city on this site, with its own additional HMO scheme: fire risk assessments in Birmingham.
Additional HMO licensing in Coventry
My HMO only has three sharers. Do I still need a licence?
Yes. Coventry’s additional licensing covers a house let to three or four people from more than one household, citywide, since 4 May 2025. Check the council page for the current fee.
Does the additional licence replace the fire risk assessment?
No. West Midlands Fire Service will still ask for the written assessment.
I let a family house in the city. Is that licensable?
Not under HMO licensing, and Coventry has no selective scheme, so a single-family let is not licensable. The fire safety duty still applies if it has common parts you control.
Getting a quote from an assessor covering Coventry
Describe the premises and we will pass it to assessors covering Coventry. Say whether it is a three or four person HMO, a five-person HMO, or a student block.
Not in Coventry? See all the areas we cover.