Landlord licensing in Ards and North Down Borough Council

Licensing at a glance

HMO licensing

HMO licensing across Northern Ireland is administered centrally by Belfast City Council's NIHMO unit, and all private landlords must register on the NI Landlord Registration Scheme.

Additional licensing

There is no separate additional licensing scheme; HMO licensing plus landlord registration apply.

Selective licensing

Landlord registration applies to every private tenancy, and the Private Tenancies Act sets notice, deposit and safety duties.

Towns covered

Ards and North Down

What this means for you

If you let a property in the Ards and North Down Borough Council area, the first job is to confirm which licensing regime the exact address falls under. HMO licensing across Northern Ireland is administered centrally by Belfast City Council's NIHMO unit, and all private landlords must register on the NI Landlord Registration Scheme. There is no separate additional licensing scheme; HMO licensing plus landlord registration apply. Landlord registration applies to every private tenancy, and the Private Tenancies Act sets notice, deposit and safety duties. Designations, fees and boundaries in Northern Ireland change regularly, so check the council's own licensing pages before each new tenancy rather than relying on what applied last time. Northern Irish lets are governed by the Private Tenancies Act (Northern Ireland) 2022, covering tenancy notices, deposits, receipts and safety requirements. Whatever the licensing position, keep the same evidence pack for every Ards and North Down Borough Council tenancy: a current gas safety record where there is gas, an EICR no more than five years old, a valid EPC, working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, deposit protection and prescribed information, and the required prescribed documents served before the tenancy starts. Landlords and agents using RentDocs store all of this against the property, so if Ards and North Down Borough Council asks for proof, or a tenant raises a complaint with a redress scheme, the time-stamped record is already there.