Landlord and agent fines continue to rise. Read a summary of some of the top rogue landlord and agent stories from January below…
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January Top Rogue Landlords
Unlicensed HMO owner and operator gets £175,000 fine for ‘squalid’ home
The owner and operator of a former Westcliff-on-Sea hotel with no working kitchen, unusable toilets, blocked drains, and rats, has been ordered to pay more than £175,000 by the courts. Three companies and a landlord, who was identified as both owner and operator, were all connected with a former hotel in Westcliff-on-Sea, as part of the council’s investigation, and guilty pleas were entered for offences under the Housing Act 2004.
Neighbours reported anti-social behaviour, drug use, poor living conditions and rats to both Southend-on-Sea City Council and Essex Police, in April 2021. The council’s subsequent investigation in June 2021 found that there were no hotel guests, but the property had become an unlicenced HMO (house of multiple occupancy) with 18 persons paying rent to live in 11 of the 15 bedrooms, whilst sharing the kitchen, toilets and bathrooms.
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Rogue landlord ordered to pay £52k for illegal extension and tiny rooms
A landlord has been fined for breaching planning rules at two properties in Camberwell, south east London. The landlord submitted a guilty plea last week in response to Southwark Council’s prosecution and was sentenced to pay £42,637 in illegal gains and a further £10,000 in fines and costs; at the Inner London Crown Court. The landlord squashed three tiny flats into the basement of one of his properties, so he could collect rent from three households, instead of one. The landlord also added a haphazard and sub-standard rear window extension, on the roof of another property. Neither of these developments had any planning permission.
Southwark Council’s planning enforcement team led the prosecution, when the illegal and sub-standard developments were not removed. The Court agreed that the landlord had illegally gained £42,637.20 in rent, after reviewing financial investigations carried out by the council’s trading standards team.
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Rogue landlord fined £12,000 for exploiting tenants in Bristol
A rogue landlord who created fake identities and letting agents to keep deposit money in an “elaborate web of misinformation” has been fined. The landlord, of the motor yacht Miss Conduct in Bristol’s harbour, pleaded guilty to consumer protection offences at Bristol Crown Court. Bristol City Council found Flight created fictitious company directors and harassed tenants who complained. The landlord was fined £12,000 and ordered to pay £25,000 in costs.
Flight faced four charges of misleading action, one of misleading omission and one of unfair commercial practice, pleading guilty to four of the six charges. He has not been banned from letting properties. From June 2019 to January 2021, complaints were received by the council about a property management business running from 21 Portland Square.
