Housetrix research · September 2026
The Article 4 map of England: where councils have switched off HMO rights
Normally, turning a family home into a small house-share (HMO) doesn't need planning permission. An Article 4 direction removes that right, street by street or borough-wide — and councils have been using it heavily. We aggregated every direction area published to the government's national planning dataset. Nobody else publishes this count.
6,922
Article 4 direction areas recorded in England
128
councils with at least one — 44% of England's 294
21 of 32
London boroughs we track have Article 4 areas recorded
The 20 councils with the most recorded restriction areas
Count of Article 4 direction areas in the national dataset. Each name links to that area's full data page.
A high count usually means a council maps many small, street-level areas; a single borough-wide direction appears as one record but can cover far more homes. Read the count as “how actively this council uses Article 4”, not as a coverage area.
Why this matters
For investors:inside an Article 4 area, the standard HMO conversion (a C3 dwelling to a C4 small house-share) needs a full planning application, with no guarantee of approval. Buying “to convert” without checking this is one of the most expensive mistakes in property — the deal maths changes completely when planning consent is uncertain.
For the market: where new HMO supply is restricted, existing licensed HMOs become scarcer assets and room rents tend to hold up. The clustering is not random: it tracks student cities and areas where councils are under pressure over housing concentration.
For residents:an Article 4 direction is a council's lever over how fast neighbourhoods convert to shared housing. This dataset shows which councils are using that lever, and how intensively.
Check any address in seconds
Every one of these areas is on our free interactive map — search a postcode for a straight yes/no.
Methodology & how to cite
Source: the article-4-direction-area dataset on planning.data.gov.uk (Open Government Licence v3.0), 6,959 published records as of September 2026. We assigned each record to a local authority by locating its coordinates within official boundaries; 6,922 records fell within an authority in England or Wales.
Known limits: the national dataset only contains what each local planning authority has published to it, so absence is not evidence of absence — some councils with well-known directions (Manchester, for example) have not yet submitted their data. Counts are direction-area records, not land area or dwellings covered. Directions also exist for reasons other than HMOs (conservation areas, demolition), though HMO control is the dominant modern use.
Cite as: “Housetrix Article 4 monitor, September 2026”, with a link to this page. The underlying per-record data is at /data/article4-points.json and per-council counts at /data/article4-counts.json. Free to reuse with attribution. Questions: @housetrix.