Broadband for Landlords Running a House in Multiple Occupation

Supplying broadband in an HMO is lawful, sensible and often the thing that lets a room quicker. The law positively allows a landlord to provide it and to recover the cost from tenants. What trips people up is not whether you may do it, but which product you buy, what you are allowed to charge, and how the cable gets from one room to the next. This guide covers all three from the landlord side.

Can a landlord provide broadband in an HMO?

Direct answer: yes, and the law positively contemplates it. Broadband is named in statute as a payment a landlord may lawfully require from tenants. The question worth spending time on is not whether you may supply it, but which of four models you use.

There are four ways to do this, and they carry very different duties. You can take one connection and share it, which is the common approach and the one with the most traps. You can buy a purpose-built multi-tenant product. You can let each tenant take their own contract. Or you can fold broadband into an inclusive rent. The table below sets out what each one commits you to.

Does a normal home broadband contract allow a landlord to supply tenants?

Direct answer: usually not, but the reason commonly given is wrong. The restriction in most residential contracts is about household and business use, not about resale. That distinction matters, because it changes which landlords are actually caught.

We read the published residential terms provider by provider. The pattern is that the service is sold for the customer's own household and personal use, and a landlord who does not live there and recharges tenants sits outside that. One provider is a genuine outlier, and we have said so rather than smoothing it into the pattern.

Two things follow. There is no blanket rule, so check your own provider rather than trusting a general claim, including this one. And the widely repeated line that residential contracts ban resale does not hold up: BT's consumer acceptable use policy contains no resale prohibition and expressly contemplates tenants using the connection.

Can a landlord charge tenants for broadband, and can you make a profit on it?

Direct answer: yes you may charge, and no you may not profit on a separate recharge. Schedule 1 paragraph 11 of the Tenant Fees Act 2019 makes a payment for a communication service a permitted payment where the tenancy agreement requires it, and defines communication service as including the internet. But it also provides that if the payment exceeds the reasonable costs incurred by the landlord, the excess is a prohibited payment.

Government guidance puts the same point plainly, saying you cannot make a profit from reselling utilities. So if you recharge broadband as a line item, recover what it costs you and keep the invoice. An administration margin on top is not permitted.

There is a lawful alternative. Where broadband is priced into an inclusive rent rather than recharged separately, it is rent, and the paragraph 11 cost cap does not bite in the same way. The trade-off since 1 May 2026 is that rent can only be increased once every 52 weeks, using the statutory section 13 procedure, and contractual rent review clauses are now void. So an inclusive rent gives you pricing freedom at the point of letting and less flexibility afterwards.

Are you a communications provider if you supply broadband to tenants?

Direct answer: the public record does not answer this, and any guide that tells you confidently either way is guessing. Here is what can actually be established.

There is no UK register to join and no notification step. Ofcom's general authorisation regime means everyone is authorised to provide networks and services, subject to the General Conditions, rather than having to apply first. If you have read elsewhere that you must notify Ofcom before providing a service, that describes the EU and Irish model and is not the UK position.

The consumer-facing conditions attach to providers of public networks and services. Section 151 of the Communications Act 2003 provides that a service is made available to members of the public if members of the public are customers of the provider of that service. A landlord whose only users are their own tenants under a tenancy is, on that test, probably not providing to the public. The closest published analogy is the Information Commissioner's view that a business offering Wi-Fi to customers is itself a subscriber to a service rather than a service provider.

That analogy has limits, and we would rather say so. The ICO framed it around incidental Wi-Fi for passing customers, and a landlord billing broadband as a contracted element of a tenancy looks more like the ICO's own description of a service provider. No Ofcom guidance, FAQ or enforcement decision addresses the landlord case by name. Our considered reading is that a small landlord sharing one connection among their own tenants is a subscriber, not a public provider. That is a reasoned position, not a ruling.

What are the fire safety rules for running cable in an HMO?

Direct answer: any cable that penetrates a fire resisting wall, floor or ceiling must have the fire resistance of that element reinstated. In an HMO this is not just good practice, because it engages the manager duties in the management regulations, and breach of those is a criminal offence.

BS 7671, the wiring regulations, requires that where a wiring system passes through elements of building construction such as floors, walls, roofs, ceilings, partitions or cavity barriers, the openings remaining after passage of the wiring system are sealed according to the degree of fire resistance required of that element before penetration. Approved Document B takes the same approach, asking that openings for cables through fire resisting elements are as few and as small as possible and are fire stopped. The test standard for penetration seals is BS EN 1366-3.

The HMO layer is what makes this sharper. Regulation 7 of the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006 requires the manager to ensure that common parts are maintained in a safe and working condition, and that "fixtures, fittings or appliances used in common by two or more households within the HMO are maintained in good and safe repair and in clean working order". A shared router and the cabling that serves it sit inside that duty. Regulation 4 separately requires the manager to keep means of escape from fire free from obstruction and in good order and repair.

Breach of the management regulations is an offence under section 234(3) of the Housing Act 2004, punishable on summary conviction with a fine, subject to a defence of reasonable excuse in section 234(4). Local authorities can also impose a civil penalty as an alternative to prosecution, and industry body Propertymark reports that the maximum civil penalty for relevant Housing Act offences rose from £30,000 to £40,000 on 1 May 2026.

One honest note on sources. The national reference for HMO fire safety is the 2008 LACORS guidance, produced by LACORS with the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and the Chief Fire Officers Association. It is guidance rather than law, and it does not address cable penetrations directly. The requirement above comes from the wiring regulations, Approved Document B and the management regulations, not from LACORS.

Are you liable for what your tenants do online?

Direct answer: not automatically as a matter of law, but very possibly as a matter of contract. Those are two different things and it is worth keeping them apart.

On the law, copyright is infringed under section 16(2) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 by a person who does, or authorises another to do, a restricted act. Authorising means more than supplying the means: in CBS Songs Ltd v Amstrad Consumer Electronics plc, the House of Lords held that selling equipment capable of infringing use does not amount to authorising infringement, because to authorise is to grant or purport to grant the right to do the act. A landlord who neither controls nor approves a tenant's specific act is a long way from that.

It is also worth knowing that the scheme most people are thinking of no longer runs. The Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme, which sent educational emails to broadband subscribers whose connections had been used for file sharing, ceased in July 2019 and no successor scheme has replaced it.

The contract is the live exposure. BT, Sky, EE and Vodafone all make the account holder responsible for use of the service by others. If you hold the account, you are the one the provider will come to. The practical answers are per-room network separation rather than one shared password, individual accounts, and a written acceptable use clause in the tenancy agreement.

Does a landlord have to keep the broadband working?

Direct answer: not by statute. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 implies a covenant to repair the structure and exterior, and installations for water, gas, electricity, sanitation, space heating and water heating. Telecoms is not on the list, and the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 does not add it.

That does not mean nothing is owed. If your tenancy agreement promises broadband, a prolonged outage is a breach of that contract term, and the tenant's remedy lies in contract rather than in a disrepair claim. The exposure is larger where broadband is bundled into an inclusive rent than where it is recharged at cost, because the tenant is more obviously paying for something they are not receiving. Say clearly in the agreement what is promised, and avoid promising a speed you cannot control.

Do you lose protections by buying business broadband?

Direct answer: yes, and this is the part almost nobody warns landlords about. Ofcom runs two separate Broadband Speeds Codes of Practice, and the signatory lists are different sets. Nine providers sign the residential code. Only three sign the business one.

The codes give a customer a minimum guaranteed speed at the point of sale and a right to exit without penalty if the speed falls below it and the provider cannot fix it. If your provider signs the residential code but not the business one, moving from a residential product to a business product to comply with their own terms can cost you that right.

Ofcom also notes that since 15 December 2023, Daisy Communications, including XLN, are no longer signatories to the business code. Separately, Ofcom's automatic compensation scheme, which pays out for delayed repairs, missed engineer appointments and delayed starts, is a residential scheme. A business line does not get it, and relies on whatever service level the contract sets out instead. So the honest position is that a business product usually buys you the right to do what you are doing, plus a service level agreement, at the cost of some consumer protections. Read the specific product before assuming either way.

What contract length should an HMO landlord buy now?

Direct answer: shorter than you would have bought two years ago. Since 1 May 2026 every assured tenancy in England is periodic, fixed terms are gone, and a tenant can end the tenancy on two months written notice. A 24 month broadband commitment can now outlive the tenancy it was bought for.

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025. Enhanced local authority enforcement powers commenced on 27 December 2025, and the main tenancy reforms, in Chapter 1 of Part 1, came into force on 1 May 2026 under the Commencement No. 2 Regulations. Existing assured shorthold tenancies converted automatically, with no need to re-paper.

For broadband buying, work the arithmetic rather than the instinct. Take the monthly discount on a 24 month deal, multiply it by 24, and set it against the likely cost of carrying the line through one or two voids, or paying to exit early. In a stable professional let, the long contract still often wins. In a high-churn student or short-stay HMO, it frequently does not. Keeping a line live through a short void is usually cheaper than ceasing and reproviding, though providers do not publish those charges consistently, so ask yours for the figure in writing.

How much broadband does an HMO actually need?

Direct answer: more upload than you think, and no, there is no reliable rule for users per megabit. The vendor formulas you will see quoted are marketing rather than evidence, and we are not going to repeat them.

What can be said with a source is how much data households now move. Ofcom's Connected Nations UK Report 2025, published on 19 November 2025, found average usage of 583 GB per connection in July 2025, up 10% on the 531 GB recorded in July 2024, with full fibre connections averaging 738 GB a month. An HMO with five working adults sits at the upper end of that distribution, not the middle.

The binding constraint in a shared house is usually upload, not download. Four people on video calls at the same time will saturate the upload path on a part-fibre service long before the download figure matters. That is the single strongest argument for full fibre in an HMO, and it is a better basis for the decision than a headline download number. Coverage is the other constraint, and in a multi-storey Victorian conversion with solid walls and closed fire doors, an access point on each floor fed by cable will always beat repeaters.

How do you get fibre into a converted HMO?

Direct answer: it is treated as a multi-dwelling unit, and the first thing needed is a wayleave. Openreach states that before installation to blocks of flats and apartments can begin, it needs permission from the freeholder or managing agent. It also warns the process can take several months.

If you are the freeholder, you are the person granting that permission, and responding promptly is in your interest. Under the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Act 2021, where a tenant has requested a service and the landlord repeatedly fails to respond to notices, an operator can seek access through the tribunal. A landlord who engages keeps control of where the equipment goes. If you are a leaseholder, you will need the freeholder's consent as well.

Where new ducting or civils are needed to reach the building, excess construction charges can apply, and the residential schedule is not published publicly. Get any charge confirmed in writing before the order proceeds, and read our guide to excess construction charges first. Our explainer on the ONT covers the box that ends up on the wall, and who owns the internal wiring sets out where your responsibility begins.

What changes in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland?

Direct answer: quite a lot, and the English position should never be assumed to travel. The HMO definitions differ, and so does the charging regime.

In Wales, the Renting Homes (Fees etc.) (Wales) Act 2019 makes a payment for a communication service a permitted payment at Schedule 1 paragraph 10, on essentially the same terms as England, but it does not carry the explicit reasonable cost cap that England has at paragraph 11(2). Welsh landlords must also register, and agents must be licensed, under Rent Smart Wales.

In Scotland, section 125 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 defines an HMO as living accommodation occupied by three or more persons who are not all members of the same family or of one or other of two families, sharing basic amenities. In Northern Ireland, section 1 of the Houses in Multiple Occupation Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 uses three or more persons who are members of more than two households, with rent payable, and all HMOs have required a licence since 1 April 2019. Neither nation has the England and Wales tenant fees regime, so the charging position there follows the ordinary tenancy contract, and a landlord in Scotland or Northern Ireland should take local advice rather than applying the English cap by analogy.

Which setup should you choose?

Direct answer: for most HMOs, one properly specified full fibre connection on a product that permits multi-tenant use, with per-room network separation, an access point per floor, and the cost recovered from tenants at cost through the tenancy agreement.

That configuration answers most of the risks on this page at once. It keeps you inside your provider's terms. It keeps the recharge lawful. Network separation reduces both the contractual exposure if a tenant misuses the connection and your data protection footprint. And full fibre deals with the upload problem that actually degrades a shared house.

Take a business or multi-tenant product with your eyes open about the speeds code position, and check what service level you are buying in place of the consumer protections you are giving up. If you run several properties, the buying decision is worth doing once, properly, and then repeating. Start by seeing what is actually available at each address, because in a lot of converted stock the answer differs street by street.

Frequently asked questions

Can a landlord provide broadband in an HMO?

Yes. The law positively contemplates it, and broadband is named as a permitted payment a landlord may recover from tenants. What catches landlords out is not whether they may supply it, but which product they buy, what they charge, and how the cabling is installed.

Does a normal home broadband contract allow a landlord to supply tenants?

Usually not, though the reason is household and business use rather than resale. Virgin Media restricts the service to the customer and members of their household. EE says it is just for you and your household for personal use and not for any trade, business or profession. Hyperoptic says it must not be used for business. BT is the outlier and its consumer policy names tenants.

Can a landlord charge tenants for broadband?

Yes in England and Wales, if the tenancy agreement requires the payment. Schedule 1 paragraph 11 of the Tenant Fees Act 2019 makes a payment for a communication service a permitted payment, and defines communication service as including the internet. Wales has an equivalent provision at Schedule 1 paragraph 10 of its own Act.

Can a landlord make a profit on broadband charged to tenants?

Not on a separate recharge in England. The Tenant Fees Act caps it: if the payment exceeds the reasonable costs incurred by the landlord, the excess is a prohibited payment. Government guidance says you cannot make a profit from reselling utilities. Pricing broadband into an inclusive rent is a different arrangement and is not capped in the same way.

Is a landlord who supplies broadband to tenants a communications provider?

The public record does not answer this. There is no UK register to join and no notification step, because the general authorisation regime applies conditions automatically. The consumer rules attach to providers of public networks and services, and a landlord whose only users are their own tenants is probably not providing to the public. No Ofcom guidance addresses the point directly.

Do you need to fire stop a cable that passes through a wall in an HMO?

Yes, where the wall, floor or ceiling is fire resisting. BS 7671 requires that openings remaining after a wiring system passes through building construction are sealed to the degree of fire resistance required of that element before penetration. In an HMO this also engages the manager duties in the management regulations, and breach of those is a criminal offence.

Is a landlord liable for what tenants download?

Not automatically as a matter of law. Copyright is infringed by a person who does or authorises a restricted act, and authorising means more than providing the means, following CBS Songs v Amstrad. But most provider contracts do make the account holder responsible for use by others, so contractual exposure and legal liability are two different things.

Is a landlord legally required to keep the broadband working?

Not by statute. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 covers structure, exterior, water, gas, electricity, sanitation, space heating and water heating. Telecoms is not in the list. If broadband is a term of the tenancy, a long outage is a breach of that contract term rather than a disrepair claim.

Do business broadband customers get the same protections as residential ones?

No, and the gap is wider than most landlords expect. Nine providers sign Ofcom's residential Broadband Speeds Code but only three sign the business one, so the minimum guaranteed speed and the right to exit for slow speeds may not apply. Ofcom automatic compensation is a residential scheme and does not cover business lines.

What broadband contract length should an HMO landlord buy?

Shorter than you used to. Since 1 May 2026 all assured tenancies in England are periodic and a tenant can leave on two months written notice, so a 24 month broadband commitment can outlive the tenancy it was bought for. Weigh the discount on a long contract against the cost of carrying it through a void.

How much broadband speed does an HMO need?

There is no sound published standard for users per megabit, and the vendor rules of thumb are marketing rather than evidence. The realistic constraint in a shared house is upload rather than download, because several people on video calls at once saturates upload first. Prioritise full fibre and upload capacity over a headline download number.

Do the broadband rules for landlords differ in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland?

Yes. Wales permits charging for a communication service under its own Act but does not carry the explicit reasonable cost cap that England has. Scotland defines an HMO as three or more persons not all from the same or two families. Northern Ireland uses three or more persons in more than two households with rent payable. Never assume the English position applies.

References

• BT. (n.d.). Consumer acceptable use policy. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://www.bt.com/terms/acceptableuse
• CBS Songs Ltd v Amstrad Consumer Electronics plc [1988] AC 1013 (HL).
• Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, c. 48, s. 16. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/16
• EE. (2025, December 9). EE home network terms. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://ee.co.uk/
• GOV.UK. (n.d.). Fees you can charge as part of a tenancy. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fees-you-can-charge-as-part-of-a-tenancy
• HM Revenue and Customs. (n.d.). Land and property (VAT Notice 742). Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-on-land-and-property-notice-742
• HM Revenue and Customs. (n.d.). Property Income Manual PIM2076: cost of providing services. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/property-income-manual/pim2076
• Houses in Multiple Occupation Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, c. 22, s. 1. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/nia/2016/22
• Housing Act 2004, c. 34, ss. 234, 254. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/34
• Housing (Scotland) Act 2006, asp 1, s. 125. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2006/1/part/5
• Hyperoptic. (n.d.). Residential customer terms of service. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://www.hyperoptic.com/legal/residential-customer-terms-of-service
• Information Commissioner's Office. (2023, August 21). Key concepts and definitions. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/direct-marketing-and-privacy-and-electronic-communications/guide-to-pecr/key-concepts-and-definitions/
• Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, c. 70, s. 11. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1985/70/section/11
• The Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006, SI 2006/372, regs. 4, 7. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/372
• Ofcom. (2025, July 16). Codes of practice. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/coverage-and-speeds/codes-of-practice
• Ofcom. (2025, November 19). Connected Nations UK report 2025. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://www.ofcom.org.uk/
• Openreach. (n.d.). Landlords: multi dwelling unit. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://www.openreach.com/help-and-support/landlords-multi-dwelling-unit
• The Renters' Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 2 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/421. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/421
• Renting Homes (Fees etc.) (Wales) Act 2019, anaw 2, sch. 1, para. 10. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2019/2/schedule/1
• Sky. (n.d.). Sky talk and broadband contract terms. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://www.sky.com/
• TalkTalk. (n.d.). Customer terms and conditions. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://www.talktalk.co.uk/
• Tenant Fees Act 2019, c. 4, sch. 1, para. 11. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/4/schedule/1
• Virgin Media. (2025, April 24). Terms and conditions for fibre optic services. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://www.virginmedia.com/legal/fibre-optic-services-terms-conditions/
• Vodafone. (2024, July). Home broadband and phone terms and conditions. Retrieved 24 August 2026, from https://www.vodafone.co.uk/

Written by Adrian James, Broadband Editor at BroadbandSwitch.uk (LinkedIn). Reviewed by Dr Alex J. Martin-Smith (LinkedIn). Published 24 August 2026, last verified 24 August 2026. Provider terms and commencement dates change frequently, so check current details before acting. This guide is information, not legal advice. For a decision that turns on your specific tenancy, licence or property, take advice from a solicitor or your local authority, and use a competent installer for any cabling that crosses fire resisting construction.