HMO agents face £50,000 fines or prison if tenants fly-tip
Agents risk big penalties and criminal records for violations as cash-strapped councils target them with unlimited fines and threats of criminal prosecution.
Landlords and agents who manage HMOs can face civil penalties of up to £50,000 and prison sentences of up to five years for fly-tipping and waste disposal rule breaches, warns waste disposal expert Graham Matthews (pictured) of BusinessWaste.co.uk.
The warning comes just as thousands of students move into HMO accommodation this month, with councils bracing for a spike in waste-related complaints.
Landlords have a responsibility to make sure there are enough bins for the number of tenants and clearly designated disposal areas for rubbish disposal.”
Responsibility for waste management in HMO properties is shared between landlords and tenants. However, those who manage them have a legal duty to provide correct equipment to maintain compliance, whereas tenants handle day-to-day waste disposal.
Matthews says: “Landlords have a responsibility to make sure there are enough bins for the number of tenants and clearly designated disposal areas for rubbish disposal,” and they must inform tenants about collection times and ensure proper recycling separation.
Wasted effort
He adds, though, that what many landlords and agents don’t realise is that any rubbish left behind after tenants have left is classed as ‘commercial waste’ and must be disposed of correctly by licensed waste carriers rather than through household waste recycling centres.
Any breaches of the rules are likely to be punished severely by cash-strapped councils. Durham County Council, for example, has warned that landlords attempting to take commercial waste to household waste recycling centres “risk being fined up to £50,000 or even imprisonment.”
And from March 2026, there will also be a new requirement for every household to have a separate weekly collection of food waste.
A landlord can provide as much recycling equipment, designated areas, information and moral exhortation as any Council operative could possibly desire, but she can’t literally force the tenants to use the equipment, sort their waste, put the bins out at the right times, etc, or prevent them from fly-tipping.
What’s the poor landlord meant to do? Sort the tenants’ waste for them? Install secret CCTV, including in their vehicles Use harsh language?
And eventually, if the landlord tries and evict them for persistent waste mismanagement, the Section 8 will be thrown out after 8 months when it eventually reaches the courts, and another branch of the council will advise the tenant to resist eviction to the last possible moment, otherwise they will be making themselves “intentionally homeless” and exclude themselves from any help with council-supplied housing.