Guidance on overcrowding
The Housing Act 1985 contains statutory definitions of overcrowding in "dwelling houses". Dwelling houses covers both privately owned houses and those owned by local authorities. A house is overcrowded if 2 persons of 10 years old or more of opposite sexes (other than husband and wife) have to sleep in the same room, or if the number sleeping in the house exceeds that permitted in the Act.

The Act specifies the numbers permitted for a given number of rooms or given floor area. For our purposes we adopt the room number yardstick. Account is only taken of rooms with a floor area larger that 50 sq feet and rooms of a type used either as a living-room or bedroom; kitchens or bathrooms etc are not included.

Using the above noted yardstick, the following table provides guidance as to the acceptable (for our purposes) number of persons occupying a house with a stated number of rooms:

NO OF ROOMS ..... PERMITTED NO OF PERSONS
.......... 1 ................................. 2
.......... 2 ................................. 3
.......... 3 ................................. 5
.......... 4 ................................. 7.5
.......... 5 ............................... 10

with an additional 2 persons for each room in excess of 5.

A child under the age of one does not count as a person. A child aged 1 - 10 years will count as only half a person.

what sizes are the bedrooms, single/double ?.

possible your mother could share the same room as your daughter if its a double, your son have a single room and your 4 yr old shares with you ?, thou you could maybe use your living room - not really ideal for someone to sleep in thou, but the room can be included, possibly also your sun lounge,