An essential part of the housing market, a blight on communities, or both?
06:01, 01 May 2026
The Holyland on St Patrick’s Day.(Image: Justin Kernoghan/Belfast Live)
Over the past decade in Belfast, three letters have transformed from being obscure initials in the housing market to becoming one of the great hot button issues within the city.
HMOs – are they the face of greedy rampant landlordism, wiping out communities, or are they essential housing for the increasing numbers of people who have little or no chance of getting on the property ladder?
Houses of Multiple Occupation, also known as a “house-share” residencies, which landlords lease out to three or more tenants from different addresses, have become increasingly controversial.
The controversy
Some argue that HMOs have negatively affected communities and led to anti-social behaviour in places like the Holylands and Stranmillis in South Belfast, where landlords pack houses with undergraduates, young professionals and others. The latest figures show just under 13,000 people in Belfast are occupants in licensed HMOs – however the number is likely to be much higher than that if unlicensed HMOs are factored in.
Council officers at the Licensing and Planning Committees at City Hall continue to argue that while overprovision is a problem in areas, HMOs remain an essential mode of housing. Meanwhile some local politicians are airing concerns that HMOs are becoming conflated with immigration levels, amidst a rising tide of racist debate on social media.
The issue has become increasingly fraught, no more so than in Belfast City Hall, where DUP has been accused of “dog whistle” politics by a number of parties over its position on HMO houses in Belfast. The Green Party, the SDLP and People Before Profit have all made accusations that the largest unionist party is using the increasingly hot debate surrounding HMOs in the city for political gain, and appealing to racist sentiment in the electorate. The DUP has vehemently denied these accusations.
The facts
HMO powers transferred from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive to local councils in Northern Ireland on April 1 2019. Under the Houses in Multiple Occupation Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, Belfast City Council became the lead authority managing the Northern Ireland HMO Unit for all local councils.
The 2019 transfer moved regulation from a registration system to a mandatory licensing scheme to improve safety and management. Belfast City Council now handles applications, inspections, and enforcement for all HMOs across Northern Ireland.
The policy was established under the Houses in Multiple Occupation Act (Northern Ireland) 2016. It introduced stipulations that HMOs should not account for more than 20 percent of any Housing Management Area, while in areas outside these the threshold became 10 percent.
In reality however many streets exceed this, with some in the Holylands, Stranmillis and the Lisburn Road area over 90 percent.
HMO licence renewal cannot be refused on the basis of overprovision of such properties in an area, but new licences can be refused on this basis. Some believe a failure by the Housing Executive to put a check on overprovision before 2016 has effectively condemned places such as the Holylands as transient wastelands which will never get the chance to grow community roots.
Applications for new HMO licences have increased outside South Belfast into other parts of the city in recent years. A series of applications have been refused by councillors in areas where the 10 percent and 20 percent threshold have not yet been met. Many of these applicants are successfully appealing the decisions via the Planning Appeals Commission.
The figures
As of March 31 this year, 3,609 homes were licensed as HMOs across Northern Ireland. By council area, 2,996 of those were in Belfast. Second on the chart was Derry and Strabane with 250, and third was Causeway Coast and Glens with 214.
All the other eight council areas in Northern Ireland had under 20 licensed HMOs, with Fermanagh and Omagh at the bottom with five HMOs.
Belfast’s 2,996 HMOs have a permitted occupancy of 12,981. Belfast saw 150 new applications and 578 renewal applications in the 2025/26 financial year.
In Belfast, 22 HMO licence applications were not successful in the 2025/26 financial year, four for breach of planning control, 10 because of documentation, three due to notice of publication, and five due to overprovision.
There were 123 enforcement notices on HMOs in that year in the city. There were 13 £5,000 fixed penalty notices enforced to owners for operating a non-licensed HMO and three £5,000 fixed penalty notices enforced to agents for operating a non-licensed HMO.
There were four £2,500 fixed penalty notices enforced to owners for breach of licensing conditions. 44 enforcement actions carried no fixed penalties, but involved using powers to require persons connected to the premises to produce documents.
A total of £175,600 was paid following the issue of fixed penalties notices across all Northern Ireland Councils in 2026/26 – £120,200 in Belfast.
Belfast Council has a webpage dedicated to tenants who wish to check on the status of the HMO they live in, here. Another page on the council website gives general advice to HMO tenants here
The Belfast Council position
Belfast Council states it is obliged to act on the 2016 legislation, and every month at the City Hall Licensing Committee, and regularly at the Planning Committee, councillors are reminded of the social utility of HMOs.
In a document for the latest Licensing Committee meeting, at which a landlord was refused a new HMO licence at Dunluce Avenue in the Lisburn Road area, an official states: “Legal Services has advised that there is a clear requirement in section 8 of the 2016 Act upon the council to be satisfied that the granting of a licence will not result in overprovision.
“In making this decision the council has had regard to the number and capacity of licensed HMOs in the locality, the need for housing accommodation in the locality and the extent to which HMO accommodation is required to meet that need.”
In every Licensing HMO application document, officials highlight with a boilerplate text the positive attributes of HMOs.
They state: “The council recognises that there is a need for intensive forms of housing and to meet this demand HMOs are an important component of this housing provision. HMOs, alongside other accommodation options within the private rented sector, play an important role in meeting the housing needs of people who are single, who have temporary employment, students, low-income households and, more recently, migrant workers.”
Last November, monitoring information produced by Belfast Council’s Planning Services for purpose built managed student accommodation, also known as student blocks, indicated that 6,306 bedspaces were completed in the last 10 years. A further 2,806 bedspaces are currently under construction, with a further 3,263 bedspaces having received planning approval.
While recent media reports have indicated that developers are finding problems filling up all the spaces in the student blocks, many have observed, including the QUB Director of Student Plus, that the current trend shows a significant move of students to purpose-built student accommodation blocks, away from HMOs. Anecdotal evidence shows that the most HMO-intensive area in the city, the Holylands, has become a quieter neighbourhood, as concerned parents direct undergraduate students away from what is seen as a notorious part of the city.
Political discord
Regarding the political parties, a former unanimity on the issue of HMOs in the chamber at City Hall has dissolved. The Green Party, the SDLP and People Before Profit have all made accusations against the DUP, and in particular DUP Alderman Dean McCullough, of using the controversy surrounding HMOs in the city for political gain, and appealing to racist sentiment in the electorate.
At a charged debate at the full council on April 1 this year, elected representatives passed a proposal by Alderman McCullough for officials to prepare a detailed map of all the HMOs across the city, including their “number, distribution and concentration.” The report will also detail numbers for short-term let accommodation across the city.
The debate was held as police officers investigated reports of criminal damage to a number of properties at Templemore Avenue and Paxton Street in east Belfast where windows were broken and “No HMOs” graffiti was daubed on the walls. The PSNI said hate crime motivation was involved in their investigations.
Alderman McCullough said at the council meeting: “Let me be clear, HMOs are placing unsustainable pressure on communities across this city, from the Shore Road, to the New Lodge Road, from the Shankill Road to the Falls Road, this is unsustainable, and it is not fair. The thresholds are too high, and the areas are too small.”
He added: “It is happening in areas already under pressure, areas in housing crisis, families languishing on sofas, where young people are unable to get a start. Properties are being lost in established, settled and proud communities. I’m speaking to pensioners and families quite literally in tears. People are literally being pushed out of communities they have lived in all their lives.
“We have seen what this leads to – the Holylands. I and this party will not wait for Holylands mark two.”
Green Party Councillor Brian Smyth said at the meeting: “It is really interesting to hear the DUP talk about issues with HMOs, when for many of us it has been a longstanding issue. My concern is that the recent interest around HMOs, as we have seen from a number of properties being vandalised, boils down to plain old fashioned racism from a few known online race baiters.
“Some people just don’t like the sight of anybody around them with brown skin. Yet when you look into the long-term problems, the lack of housing across this city, it is down to an Executive that has failed to build enough homes, since the signing of the Good Friday agreement.
“We should have built 40,000 homes by now, yet only half of that has happened. 6,400 social homes have been built in Northern Ireland in the last six years. That is nowhere near enough with 50,000 on waiting lists. Rampant landlordism is also very much a problem, and has contributed to the rise of HMOs across the city.”
He said: “HMOs unfortunately for some of us are an essential part of the housing market. The rental market is getting increasingly difficult to access, and they provide a regulated option for some people, despite some of us having issues with them.” He called for rent caps, and said the responsibility for that lay with the Minister for Communities at Stormont, DUP MLA Gordon Lyons.
Green Party Councillor Áine Groogan said: “I have seen the worst impacts of over-densification in my constituency in Botanic, where the horse has bolted unfortunately, in terms of a lot of the problems that have been created. But I am a little confused about the intent, and the point, behind the (DUP) proposal.”
She said: “We had the HMO Act in 2016 which brought about fundamental changes to HMO provision in Northern Ireland. HMOs are a legitimate form of accommodation, and an absolutely necessary one. In terms of the private rental sector, it is one of the best regulated that we have, as opposed to the wild, wild west of the rest of the rental market.
“I know as a student and a young professional in the city, if it wasn’t for HMO accommodation, I would have been homeless. And that is the case for quite a large number of people.” She said HMOs had been made “a scapegoat for a lot of failures elsewhere.”
She added: “I have faith and trust in the legislation and our officers, in terms of the thresholds in place around the 10 percent, and I do believe there are sufficient safeguards there to ensure that what occurred in my constituency will never happen again. Overprovision is now put into legislation, and we will not approve anything that goes above that.”
DUP Councillor Sarah Bunting said: “Let me clearly state, all acts of racism should be condemned. This has nothing to do with the colour of people’s skin.”
She said: “It is due to the large rise in HMOs, Air BnBs and short-term lets in settled neighbourhoods that people who have been born in those areas are struggling to find a family home, and to stay close to their support networks.”
She added: “Alderman McCullough has raised points around the change and feel of communities for older people who bought their homes decades ago and now are having to deal with high levels of antisocial behaviour. The huge numbers of HMOs in parts of our city are also causing issues for this council, for our waste collection, with flytipping and other waste issues.”
People Before Profit Councillor Michael Collins said at the meeting: “The interpretation is that people who migrate into these communities are the problem. It is a very clear and deliberate attempt to be vague, but use dog whistle politics. And it is very dangerous.”
Short-term lets controversy – the new HMO?
While some believe HMOs will never again overrun streets with the new 10 and 20 percent limits, others are warning the great threat to residential areas is not HMOs anymore but rather short-term lets. Popularized by platforms like Airbnb, these lets are furnished residential properties, rented out for short periods ranging from a few nights to six months. They often serve as alternatives to hotels for tourists and business travellers.
Several councillors at City Hall have raised the alarm about the spread of short term lets. SDLP Botanic Councillor Gary McKeown, at the April meeting of the council’s Licensing Committee said: “We have a really robust HMO system in place now, a system that came too late, and that’s why in areas I represent there are far too many HMOs. But nonetheless at least we have regulation. However the time has long since passed where we should have similar regulations in place for short-term lets.”
He said: “We know the council team is investigating literally hundreds of reports on illegal short-term lets, and that’s only on a potential absence of planning permission. It isn’t looking at all the other stuff, things such as safety or impact on communities. We need to push for proper regulation for short-term lets.” He appealed for Belfast Council to arrange meetings with all the relevant Stormont departments “as soon as possible.”
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