KerbioPress
Kerbio compiles UK property rules and data from councils' own websites and public datasets: HMO Article 4, licensing, council schemes for landlords and Local Housing Allowance. These are the stories in our data. Use the figures freely with a link to the source page.
Councils will pay landlords up to £10,000 to house a tenant
- 208 of the 296 councils in England we checked run a scheme for private landlords.
- 19 lease homes or guarantee the rent, paying every month whether the home is occupied or not. Lewisham offers leases of three to nine years.
- Most of the rest pay a one-off incentive to landlords who house a household the council nominates. The highest published figures: Waltham Forest and St Albans up to £10,000, Milton Keynes £8,385 (six-bed), Enfield £6,000, Croydon £5,500.
- The catch for landlords: the rent is usually at or below the Local Housing Allowance rate.
- With Section 21 abolished from 1 May 2026, these schemes are a route many landlords are now looking at.
Full story and council finder · Every council's scheme
How we compiled it: from each council's own website, September 2026. Payment figures are the highest each council publishes; most pay less, and many pay by bedroom size.
79 councils' HMO Article 4 rules are missing from the government's national planning data
- 79 of the 126 councils with an HMO Article 4 direction have not published it to the national Article 4 dataset on planning.data.gov.uk, including Manchester, Nottingham, Brighton and Hove, and Portsmouth (re-checked 11 October 2026).
- 39 of the 79 cover the whole borough.
- Maps, apps and property tools that rely on the national data can show "no Article 4" where there is one, and buying on that answer can be expensive.
- It isn't anyone hiding anything: the platform fills up as councils add data, and the directions are on the councils' own websites.
Full story · Data (CSV) · Postcode checker
How we compiled it: every English council's own Article 4 page checked against the national dataset, first compiled 30 September 2026 and re-checked against a fresh download on 11 October 2026. Licensed CC BY 4.0.
HMO Article 4 changes: October 2026
- 3 councils switched on HMO Article 4 since last month, 6 more have confirmed start dates, 7 are made and waiting to be confirmed, and 8 are on the way.
- Updated every month from each council's own website, with a link to the council source for every item.
How we compiled it: a monthly check of every English council's Article 4 page and the national dataset.
Data: the datasets behind these stories are free to reuse (CC BY 4.0) on our open data page, with a map of every council.
Happy to share the underlying data, check figures for a specific council, or comment on HMO rules and council schemes.
Kerbio is independent. General information, not legal, planning or financial advice.