Westminster
Verified local trades for Westminster
London Heroes covers Westminster around the clock. Every professional is identity-checked by a human, has their credentials verified against evidence and watched for expiry, and every payment is held securely until you confirm the work is done.
Landlord licensing in Westminster
Mandatory HMO licensing applies across England. Westminster may also operate additional or selective licensing.
- Selective licensing
- In operation. Selective licensing across 15 of Westminster's 18 wards, split into two designations made on the same day. Both apply to any house let or occupied under a single tenancy, or under two or more tenancies or licences in respect of different dwellings within it, excluding properties licensable as mandatory HMOs or under the council's additional HMO scheme, and excluding registered social landlord lettings. Published fee: £995 (Part A £543 / Part B £452). Discounts: 10% of the total (£99.50) off Part B for accredited landlords; 20% of Part B (£90.40) for EPC B or above; 10% of Part B (£45.20) for EPC C; £125 off Part B where multiple leaseholds in the same freehold and block are applied for together; and a 100% discount for registered charities providing accommodation solely for vulnerable persons. The council states a licence does not need to be approved before a property can be rented — applications can be in progress.Coverage: Designation No. 1 (8 wards): Abbey Road, Church Street, Harrow Road, Knightsbridge and Belgravia, Little Venice, Maida Vale, Queen's Park, Westbourne. Designation No. 2 (7 wards): Bayswater, Hyde Park, Lancaster Gate, Marylebone, Pimlico North, Regent's Park, West End. Excluded (3 wards): Pimlico South, St James's, Vincent Square.Designated: Both designations were made on 24 June 2025, came into force on 24 November 2025, and cease to have effect on 23 November 2030 (not more than five years) unless revoked earlier. Neither required Secretary of State confirmation, relying on the general approval that came into force on 23 December 2024. Applications opened on 1 October 2025.
- Additional HMO licensing
- In operation. Borough-wide additional HMO licensing. The council describes the scope as shared houses or flats where three or more people from two or more households share facilities such as a kitchen or bathroom — flat and house shares, bedsits, some hostels and staff accommodation, and section 254 HMOs in purpose-built blocks not caught by mandatory licensing. IMPORTANT TRANSITION: the existing scheme (the Westminster City Council Designation of an Area for Additional Licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation 2021, made 21 April 2021) has been renewed following consultation and a Cabinet decision of 16 March 2026.Coverage: Borough-wide.Designated: Existing scheme designated 21 April 2021. A renewed borough-wide designation was made 21 April 2026 and comes into force 31 August 2026, running five years from that date.
Westminster's selective scheme is unusually broad for an inner-London borough of its value profile: it captures high-value single lettings in Knightsbridge and Belgravia and Marylebone as well as the lower-value stock around Church Street, Harrow Road and Queen's Park. Two schemes therefore run in parallel and a landlord must work out which applies: HMOs go to mandatory or additional licensing, everything else privately rented in the 15 designated wards goes to selective. The two selective designations were split on evidence grounds (Designation 1 on poor housing conditions; Designation 2 on poor conditions plus persistent anti-social behaviour) but carry the same dates and the same fee. Landlords should also be aware that Westminster's additional HMO scheme is at a changeover point in 2026 — the renewed designation takes effect 31 August 2026.
Checked against the council’s own pages on 21 July 2026. Licensing schemes are five-year designations that expire and get redesignated on their own timetables — always confirm on WestminsterCouncil’s licensing pages before applying or paying.
What Westminster is built of — and what that means for repairs
Westminster's private housing is unusually flat-dominated and unusually old. Very large parts of the city are Georgian and early-Victorian stucco terraces — Belgravia, Pimlico, Bayswater, Marylebone — the great majority of which were long ago converted into flats and maisonettes rather than remaining single houses, and much of which is listed and inside conservation areas. Layered onto that are late-Victorian and Edwardian red-brick mansion blocks, which are a defining Westminster building type in Marylebone, Maida Vale, Little Venice and around Victoria, typically with communal heating, lifts, porters and freeholder-controlled common parts. There is also substantial council and housing association stock, concentrated around Church Street, Harrow Road, Queen's Park and Westbourne, and a small but high-profile band of new-build in the Victoria and Paddington regeneration areas.
Common repair issues in Westminster
- Listed building and conservation area consent requirements that constrain windows, front elevations, railings, roof alterations and external plant across most of the borough's period stock
- Stucco and render maintenance, cornice and parapet repair, and rainwater goods failure on Georgian and early-Victorian terraces
- Mansion block complexities: communal boilers and risers, lift maintenance, shared soil stacks, and freeholder or managing agent consent needed before works in individual flats
- Damp in lower-ground-floor and vault/basement areas of period terraces, including lightwell drainage and tanking
- Sound transmission and fire compartmentation issues in historic houses converted to flats without modern separating construction
- Short-let and holiday-let pressure in central wards, where the 90-night rule for entire-home short lets interacts with licensing, leases and planning enforcement
- Restricted street access, parking suspensions and out-of-hours noise rules that make scaffolding, deliveries and skips harder to arrange than elsewhere in London
Areas we cover in Westminster
- Marylebone
- Pimlico
- Belgravia
- Maida Vale
- Bayswater
- Queen's Park
- Little Venice
- Westbourne
Nearby boroughs
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Services in Westminster
Ordered for what’s common in Westminster’s housing — every service is available to book here, day or night.
Browse all servicesStraight answers for Westminster
How do I find a verified plumber or electrician in Westminster?
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Do landlords need a property licence in Westminster?
Westminster operates additional HMO licensing borough-wide and selective licensing until 23 November 2030; the exact coverage of selective licensing is set out on our Westminster page. Mandatory HMO licensing applies across England regardless. Checked against Westminster Council’s own pages on 21 July 2026 — confirm on the council’s website before applying, as designations expire and are renewed on their own timetables.
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