Most hosts hear the London rule as a cap on income: ninety nights and then stop. It is not a cap. It is an exemption from planning control, and an exemption is something a public body can grant, condition, or take away.
- Two conditionsNights and council tax, together
- Section 25BWhere the exemption stops applying
- £20,000The notice-breach ceiling
Ninety nights, and two conditions people forget
Before 2015, using a London home as temporary sleeping accommodation was in principle a material change of use, which required planning permission. Section 44 of the Deregulation Act 2015 inserted section 25A into the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973 and created a narrow exception. It came into force in May 2015.
The exception applies only when both conditions hold.
The night condition
Section 25A subsection 2
The council tax condition
Section 25A subsection 3
The second condition is the one that quietly disqualifies portfolios. A management company that lets a flat it does not occupy and is not liable for council tax on is outside section 25A even at twenty nights, because the exemption was written for a resident letting their own home, not for an operator running someone else's.
The night count is per premises and per calendar year, and it aggregates every previous use in that year. Two owners in succession, or the same flat sold in July, do not each get a fresh ninety. A buyer who assumes the counter reset on completion can be over the threshold before the first guest arrives.
The clause that lets a council switch the exemption off
Section 25B is the part almost never quoted, and it is the reason a London answer cannot be given nationally. It allows the local planning authority, or the Secretary of State, to direct that section 25A does not apply to particular residential premises, or to residential premises situated in a particular area, where that is considered necessary to protect the amenity of the locality.
The default
Ninety nights a year, no planning application, provided both conditions hold.The direction
A borough may disapply the exemption for named premises or for a defined area, on amenity grounds.The consequence
Inside a direction, any use as temporary sleeping accommodation is a material change of use from the first night, so planning permission is required before letting at all.
This is why two flats on the same street can sit under different regimes, and why a general article about London is worth less than a call to the borough. Greater London has thirty-three local planning authorities, and each holds this power independently.
What enforcement actually looks like
The planning route is slow and works through enforcement notices. The route councils reach for first is faster and hits harder in cash terms.
| Instrument | Effect |
|---|---|
| Community Protection Notice, breached by a business | Fine of up to £20,000 |
| Community Protection Notice, breached by an individual | Fine of up to £2,500 |
| Closure Order | Access to the property restricted for up to six months |
| Noise abatement notice | Service, seizure of equipment, prosecution |
| Fire safety breach under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 | Conviction with an unlimited fine |
Penalty ceilings for a breached Community Protection Notice in Westminster
- Business
- 20000 £
- Individual
- 2500 £
The eightfold gap between the two ceilings is not about the nuisance. It is about who caused it. An operator letting several flats is treated as a business, which is the classification most hosts never check before scaling from one property to four.
2 penalty ceilings published by Westminster City Council for a breached Community Protection Notice ·A Closure Order deserves its own line. It does not fine the owner. It stops the asset earning for up to half a year, which on a central London flat is a larger number than any of the fines above.
The register that is still being built
England is moving towards a mandatory national registration scheme for short-term lets, with its legal framework in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. The government has confirmed a mandatory national approach rather than a local patchwork, and work has moved into an initial phase of digital development.
Alongside it sits a proposed new planning use class for short-term lets, referred to as C5, defined as the use of a dwellinghouse that is not a sole or main residence for temporary sleeping accommodation. Existing properties meeting the definition would fall into it without a planning application, and associated permitted development rights would allow movement between C5 and ordinary residential use, with local authorities able to remove those rights where they judge it necessary. The ninety nights for a sole or main residence survive the change.
Answering that in two lines requires one number to be written down and current: how many nights the property has already been let this calendar year. That figure lives in a booking calendar, not in anyone's memory, and it is exactly the kind of fact a well-kept property knowledge base holds so that whoever replies at seven in the evening does not have to reconstruct it. Hosts who also let in France will find the same shape of problem with a different mechanism, described in the French rules guide.
