Can the council send my HMO licence to my email instead of posting it?

The situation

I am a small-scale landlord living in Manchester, England, and I have been working with the local council to sort out the mandatory licensing for my property. I own a small house that I rent out to four students, which falls under the House in Multiple Occupation rules. Last Tuesday, the 14th of May, I had a long phone call with a licensing officer to finalise all the paperwork and pay the £1,500 fee via bank transfer. During that conversation, I explicitly told the officer that I would much prefer to receive all future official correspondence, including the actual licence itself, via my email address rather than through the traditional post, as I am often away on business and worried about things getting lost in the mail. The officer said they would make a note of my preference on my file. However, it has now been over a week and I haven't received anything in my inbox. I am a bit worried because I need to show proof of the licence to my mortgage provider by the end of this month. I am unsure if the council is actually allowed to just email me the official licence and other legal documents if I have asked them to, or if they are legally required to send a physical paper copy to my home address to make it valid.

Detailed Analysis

Under the Housing Act 2004, your local council has the legal power to issue your HMO licence through electronic means rather than traditional post. Specifically, the law states that a local housing authority "may... issue a licence to a person under Part 2 or 3 by transmitting the text of the licence to him by electronic means"^[1]. This means they are not legally required to send a physical paper copy to your home address to make the licence valid, provided certain conditions are met.

For this to be valid, the licence must be "received by him in legible form, and... capable of being used for subsequent reference"^[1]. Since you need to show proof to your mortgage provider, an emailed PDF that is clear and readable should satisfy this requirement.

However, there is a strict requirement regarding your consent. The law says the recipient "must have indicated to the local housing authority the recipient’s willingness to receive documents transmitted in the form and manner used"^[1]. This means you must have clearly told them you want email correspondence. While you mentioned this to the officer during your call on 14 May, the law also requires that your indication "must state the address to be used and must be accompanied by such other information as the local authority may require"^[1].

It is possible that simply telling the officer over the phone was not enough to satisfy the council's specific administrative requirements for "indicating" your willingness. If the council has a specific form or a formal process to register an email address for service, they may be waiting for you to complete that before they trigger the electronic transmission. Additionally, the council has a duty to "take reasonable steps to identify the person" they are serving^[2], so they may be performing final checks on your details before sending the document.

State, provincial, or local council policies may add further administrative rules regarding how they process electronic requests.

Statutory Citations

Related Questions

• Can my council designate my area for additional HMO licensing?
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• When does the new HMO licensing rule actually start working in my area?