HMO conversion design in Blackfen, DA15
For an HMO conversion in Blackfen, we provide the architectural design: a measured layout that fits licensing room sizes, then the drawings for London Borough of Bexley or your builder. The fixed fee for HMO layout and planning drawings starts at £895.
Fixed fee from £695 drawings + £200 survey (£895 total) · all prices
Prefer to talk it through?
Design starts from the room sizes the licence allows
A Blackfen house turned into an HMO is judged on its bedrooms. The Licensing of HMOs (Mandatory Conditions of Licences) (England) Regulations 2018 require a room slept in by one person over 10 to be at least 6.51 square metres (legislation.gov.uk). A room that misses it cannot be let as a bedroom.
So the design runs in a fixed order: a measured survey, a count of the rooms that clear the minimum, then the partitions, bathrooms and kitchen. Our HMO conversion drawings service covers the full scope. For the wider budget, see our guide to HMO conversion costs in London.
Five occupants is where mandatory licensing starts
Mandatory licensing covers an HMO occupied by five or more persons living in two or more separate households, under article 4 of the Licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation (Prescribed Description) (England) Order 2018. A shared house of fewer people may still need a licence if Bexley has its own scheme, so ask the council before you commit to a plan.
That threshold affects the design directly. A four-bedroom plan and a six-bedroom plan are different buildings once fire safety, shared kitchens and bathrooms are counted, and the drawings should reflect which one you are licensing.
The Planning Inspectorate Casework Database (release 2609, 1 October 2026) records 157 householder appeals from Bexley decided as allowed or dismissed over 2021 to 2026, and our analysis shows 34% were allowed.
Our fee, and what is outside it
Our starting fixed fee for HMO conversion layout and planning drawings is £895, as published on the pricing page. We confirm the figure for your Blackfen house before we start. The build, the licence fee and any council application fee are separate costs that you pay directly.
Where a change needs a planning application, we prepare the drawings for it. Whether it does depends on permitted development and on any article 4 direction, which our article 4 guide explains, alongside our guide to planning permission for an HMO.
How Bexley decides applications for homes
Bexley decided 877 householder applications over the latest four quarters, and our analysis of the MHCLG planning application statistics (table PS2, released 24 September 2026) shows 95% were granted. Excluding prior approvals, 100% of its householder decisions were made within 8 weeks, rounded to the nearest whole per cent. All planning decisions in the borough over the same period came to 1,258.
Householder applications are a different category from an HMO change of use, so read these as the borough's general pattern. Our page on planning permission in Bexley walks through how an application proceeds.
Appeals and conservation areas in the borough
The Planning Inspectorate Casework Database (release 2609, 1 October 2026) records 157 householder appeals from Bexley decided as allowed or dismissed over 2021 to 2026, and our analysis shows 34% were allowed. That is a record of past appeals, not a prediction.
The MHCLG Planning Data Platform lists 31 live conservation-area entries for Bexley on the national register, according to our analysis of the bulk snapshot retrieved on 14 August 2026. Check the council's conservation area map for your road, since a designation affects how external changes are drawn. If you need a plan of the house as it stands first, see floor plans in Bexley.
Sources
Every figure on this page, where it comes from and a link to the original.
| Figure | Source | Link |
|---|---|---|
| £895 | DrawingsDirect starting fixed fee for HMO conversion layout and planning drawings, from the published price list | drawingsdirect.co.uk |
| 6.51 square metres | Licensing of HMOs (Mandatory Conditions of Licences) (England) Regulations 2018 Sch 4 para 1A(2)(a): a room used as sleeping accommodation by one person aged over 10 must be at least 6.51 square metres (source wording: "not less than 6.51 square metres") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| five or more | Licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation (Prescribed Description) (England) Order 2018 art 4: mandatory HMO licensing covers an HMO occupied by five or more persons living in two or more separate households (source wording: "is occupied by five or more persons") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 877 | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 95% | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 100% | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 157 | Our analysis of Planning Inspectorate Casework Database (released 1 Oct 2026 (Casework Database 2609)) | www.gov.uk |
| 34% | Our analysis of Planning Inspectorate Casework Database (released 1 Oct 2026 (Casework Database 2609)) | www.gov.uk |
| 31 | Our analysis of MHCLG Planning Data Platform conservation-area and article-4-direction datasets (bulk snapshot retrieved 14 Aug 2026) | www.planning.data.gov.uk |
| 1,258 | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
Questions people ask
How much does HMO conversion design cost in Blackfen?
How big does a bedroom need to be in a licensed HMO?
Do I need an HMO licence in Blackfen?
Photographs: Tim Green from Bradford (CC BY 2.0); David Howard (CC BY-SA 2.0).
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