Brent HMO right of reversion claim fails as evidence runs out

A Brent HMO right of reversion argument has failed after an enforcement appellant could not prove that the property had ever lawfully entered Class C4 before later becoming a large sui generis HMO.

Inspector Felicity Thompson dismissed appeal APP/T5150/C/25/3359486 on 30th September 2026, upheld Brent Council’s enforcement notice and refused planning permission on the deemed application. The notice concerned an HMO at Randall Avenue and had been issued on 16th December 2024.

The practical point is a useful one for landlords and advisers. A right to revert under section 57(4) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is not automatic merely because somebody says the building was once used as a small HMO.

The former use must first be shown to have lawfully existed. In this case, the evidence did not get over that threshold.

The claimed former C4 use was never proved

The appellant, Mr Zuber Ahmed of Homes Holdings 2 Ltd, bought the property on 3rd December 2021.

His case on ground (c) was that the property had already been used as a Class C4 HMO and that there was therefore a lawful use to which it could revert after the later unauthorised development.

For the HMO right of reversion argument, that matters because section 57(4) can allow land to return to a previous lawful use following enforcement. But the statutory mechanism only helps if the earlier use was itself lawful.

It is not a shortcut around proving what the earlier planning use actually was. The evidence was awkward from the start. That lawful earlier use had to be established before any right of reversion could arise.

The appellant said the house had been used as an HMO before purchase, but the Inspector recorded that there was no supporting evidence for that assertion. Sales particulars submitted by Brent instead suggested single-family occupation in May 2021.

There was later material pointing towards HMO intentions. An HMO licence application was for six occupants, and the house may have been laid out as a small C4 HMO by October 2022.

But licensing and layout are not the same thing as proving the planning use. The Inspector said the question had to be considered by looking at the former use, physical condition, actual use, intended use and chronology together.

Her shorthand was to “look at the evidence in the round”.

Council visits showed a very different HMO use

The hard evidence of actual occupation came later, and it pointed to a much larger HMO outside Class C4. Brent’s visits found between 18 and 20 people at the property in June 2023 and at least seven in October 2024.

A C4 HMO is limited to no more than six residents, so those numbers placed the use in the sui generis category.

The appellant did not dispute the Council’s evidence about the numbers, although it was argued that overcrowding resulted from Council placements. That left the right of reversion claim dependent on proof of a lawful earlier C4 use.

That did not answer the planning question before the Inspector: whether a lawful Class C4 use had first been established and could therefore support the claimed reversion.

On the balance of probabilities, the Inspector found the evidence was not “sufficiently precise and unambiguous” to show that a material change of use to C4 had occurred before the relevant Article 4 restriction took effect.

That is consistent with Planning Geek’s wider guidance on proving the lawful planning status of an HMO. An HMO licence may be useful evidence, but it operates under a different statutory regime and does not by itself establish the planning use.

One Article 4 date in the decision needs caution

There is an important chronology issue in the published decision. Paragraph 7 correctly says Brent’s HMO Article 4 Direction came into force on 1st November 2022.

But the same paragraph then says that a C4 use before 6th December 2019 would have benefited from permitted development rights and that permission would have been needed after that date. Those two dates cannot both describe Brent’s operative HMO direction.

Brent Council’s official Article 4 record says the current C3-to-C4 direction was confirmed in February 2022 and came into effect on 1st November 2022. The signed Brent HMO Article 4 Direction is hosted locally here.

Brent’s Cabinet record also shows that an earlier direction made in 2019 did not proceed to confirmation and was formally revoked before the replacement direction was made.

The 6th December 2019 date is, however, the operative date of Redbridge’s borough-wide HMO Article 4 Direction. A Redbridge lawful-development appeal decided by the same Inspector on 6th February 2026 used very similar wording around that date.

That points to a possible drafting carry-over, although the Brent decision itself does not explain the discrepancy. That chronology matters to the HMO right of reversion argument.

The Inspector recorded that the Randall Avenue property may have been laid out as a C4 HMO in October 2022, shortly before Brent’s actual direction came into force.

She nevertheless concluded that the evidence did not establish that a material change to a lawful C4 use had occurred before the direction became operative.

For anyone relying on the decision, we would use Brent’s official 1st November 2022 operative date rather than the 2019 date printed later in paragraph 7.

Whether the discrepancy has any wider legal consequence is a separate question; the published appeal decision stands unless and until it is successfully challenged.

Why the HMO right of reversion argument failed

The HMO right of reversion case relied on two propositions. First, a change from Class C3 to Class C4 can ordinarily fall within Class L permitted development rights where those rights have not been removed.

Secondly, section 57(4) can protect a return to the use that land could lawfully have been put to if the enforced development had never happened.

The Inspector accepted the legal principle that a change of use can sometimes occur before active occupation and warned against putting too much stress on actual use alone. Physical works can matter.

So can intended use and objective evidence such as active marketing. But the whole chronology still had to demonstrate a lawful C4 use on the balance of probabilities. Here it did not.

The ground (c) right of reversion argument therefore failed, and the later sui generis HMO remained a breach of planning control.

Planning permission was refused as well

The fallback ground (a) case also failed. Brent’s policies seek to protect family housing and support this type of accommodation where a specific local need is demonstrated.

The Inspector found no evidence of a specific Brent need sufficient to outweigh the loss of the family-sized dwelling. The internal layout also counted against the scheme.

Bedrooms met minimum room-size standards and had en-suite facilities, but there was no lounge or dining room and the shared kitchens offered nowhere to eat. The Inspector found the lack of usable communal space unduly restrictive.

Neighbour complaints about noise and disturbance, including at night and in the early hours, added further harm.

The Inspector concluded that the housing-choice benefits did not outweigh the effects on family housing, occupants and neighbours, so planning permission on the deemed application was refused.

The notice requirements and six-month period survived

Ground (f) failed because the Inspector considered the required cessation of the HMO use and removal of associated partitions, kitchens and bathrooms no more than was necessary to remedy the breach and restore the building. Ground (g) failed too.

The appellant wanted 12 months rather than six, but provided too little detail about tenancy terms or notice periods to show the existing period was unreasonable. The Inspector also noted Brent’s separate discretion under section 173A(1)(b) to extend compliance if necessary.

Full costs application against Brent was refused

Homes Holdings 2 Ltd also sought a full award of costs against Brent, arguing in part that there had been no breach and criticising the Council’s handling of its investigation. That application was refused in a separate decision.

The Inspector said the appeal had failed because the breach had occurred and found that the notice followed a “diligent investigation”. She rejected the suggestion that better discussion or investigation by Brent would have avoided the appeal.

The costs decision is useful because it separates dissatisfaction with an authority’s enforcement process from the much narrower test for an award of costs. There must be unreasonable behaviour that causes unnecessary or wasted expense. The Inspector found neither requirement was met.

Why this Brent HMO appeal matters

The HMO right of reversion is not unavailable in principle. Section 57(4) can protect a return to a genuinely lawful former use after enforcement.

The problem here was proof: a licence, layout or claimed intention to let rooms did not establish that this property had lawfully entered Class C4. For HMO cases in Article 4 areas, a dated chronology is essential.

For an HMO right of reversion case, identify the lawful starting use, when the C3-to-C4 change was implemented, occupant numbers, the direction’s true operative date, any later intensification and the evidence supporting each stage. This case adds one further warning.

Brent’s current HMO direction took effect on 1st November 2022. The 6th December 2019 date printed later in the decision should not be repeated as Brent’s operative date.