>> houses of multiple occupancy. It's a great idea where you take a home that in the 1980s would house a family and split it into 5 flats where each person can rent 10-20 square metres each

This isn't correct. When a house is split into multiple flats, they're individual flats rented out under separate agreements and not a HMO.

A HMO is when that house is rented to a group of people who are unrelated to each other (i.e. not of the same 'household'). They are generally jointly and severally liable (under an AST). They each have a bedroom and share kitchen/bathroom/common areas. HMO's have stricter health & safety regulations. For example, doors must be the automatically closing fire doors that you get in public buildings.

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physicsguy 3 days ago | parent [-]

> They are generally jointly and severally liable (under an AST).

That’s usually the case for student rentals but largely isn’t the case for professional rentals where each room is let separately

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basisword 3 days ago | parent [-]

In about 18 years in HMO's I've only had one occasion where the rooms were let separately (in that case they were all being let separately from the start). Most of the time you move in and join an existing lease where the leaving tenant is removed and you are added alongside the other tenants.

I think it probably depends on how the initial people moved in. If the estate agent is renting the rooms individually from the beginning it'll be separate agreements. If it's initially rented to a group of friends it's likely a joint AST and then re-assigned over the years as individuals change and the lease is renewed until you have a bunch of strangers jointly and severally liable (not a great idea).

	▲	physicsguy 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe this is a 'where you live' sort of thing then... I've never been based in London and when I was HMO-ing it was typically stuff on Spareroom which was always individual lets per room pretty much in the areas I lived at least (probably less competitive than London)