The search shows I cannot convert the house to an HMO without permission

A restriction stops the house becoming a house in multiple occupation

Only if you were planning to let it that way. The entry withdraws the permitted change of use from a dwellinghouse — use class C3 — to a small house in multiple occupation — use class C4 — so that change now needs a full planning application. If you are buying the house to live in, it changes nothing about your purchase at all.

From the e-ROT archive

This scenario is drawn from Report on Title material dealing with this specific circumstance.

Lexsure master Report on Title paragraph: Local Land Charge - Restriction to Permitted Development - HMO · See the wording

The two use classes, briefly

Class C3 is an ordinary dwellinghouse: a household. Class C4 is a small house in multiple occupation — broadly, three to six unrelated people sharing basic amenities.

Nationally, moving between the two is often permitted development, which is why the conversion of family houses into shared lets can happen without any planning application. Authorities that want to manage the concentration of shared housing in a particular area withdraw that right, and the withdrawal shows up as an entry on the local land charges register.

Who this actually affects

Anyone intending to let the property as a shared house, and essentially nobody else. The Lexsure wording below says so directly, and it is worth repeating because an entry on a local search reads alarmingly whatever it says.

If you are buying to live in the house, or to let it to a single household, the restriction sits in the background and never engages.

If the house is currently let as an HMO, that is a different question and a more urgent one: the existing use may be lawful or it may not, and that needs establishing rather than assuming.

If a shared let was the plan

You can still apply. The restriction removes the automatic right, not the possibility — but an application can be refused, and in an area where the authority has gone to the trouble of making the restriction, refusal is a realistic outcome.

Find out before exchange what the authority's policy actually is. Many publish a threshold — a percentage of HMOs within a radius above which applications are refused — and that figure, applied to this street, is the answer to your question.

HMO licensing is a separate regime from planning and does not substitute for it. Satisfying one says nothing about the other.

Local Land Charge - Restriction to Permitted Development - HMO

Master precedent Lexsure e-ROTScope C3 to C4 change of useWord count 73Status Current master paragraph

In practice, what the entry means is that while certain changes of use are generally permitted, this specific change from a dwellinghouse to a house in multiple occupation is restricted. This means that a full planning application may be required to make such a change in use, rather than relying on permitted development rights.

This will only affect you if you have development plans to alter the property from a single private dwelling.

Dealing with this on a current conveyancing matter?

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