Is My Rental Property an Unwitting or Accidental HMO?
Portsmouth lettings agency Kings Estates and Southsea landlord fined £18,000 for unlicensed 12-bed student house
11 Feb 2021 A LETTINGS agency has been fined £12,000 after council officers found 11 students living in a ‘high risk’ unlicensed converted pub. Portsmouth letting firm Kings Estates was initially handed a £6,000 fine by Portsmouth City Council after a tenant blew the whistle about the lack of a mandatory licence. Elegance lap dance bar owner Paul Ojla, the co-owner, of the shared 12-bed house...
Leeds landlord has been fined for renting out this mouldy, unsafe house
2 May 2019 A woman living in this dangerously maintained house in Chapeltown has been awarded compensation after her landlord was taken to court. Andrew Watson, of Harehills Avenue in Chapeltown, was fined £6,500 and ordered to pay victim compensation of £1,000 after he repeatedly ignored legal notices served by Leeds City Council regarding the condition of a house he was renting out on Hill Top...
Fatal fire in unlicensed house leads to £15k fine and entry on rogues database
20 Jan 2020 A judge has ordered two landlords to pay a total of £14,858 for illegally renting out an unlicensed house without working smoke alarms to tenants whose teenage son died after it caught fire. Firefighters attended the scene in Thornton Heath, south London, last March but 13-year-old Kuzi Matope went on to die in hospital in April. The cause of Kuzi’s death has yet to be determined at...
Rogue landlord fined as council clamps down on ‘unacceptable living conditions’
"I hope this sends a clear message - we want to clamp down on unacceptable living conditions." A landlord has been fined for his failure to have a licence in place for the House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) in Barnstaple which he owns and manages. Mr Franco Capocci was found guilty on 31 July at North and East Devon Magistrates Court of failing to obtain a licence in relation to The Gables at 4...
Wirral Council Extends Selective Licensing Scheme
Landlords are being warned that Wirral Council is extending its selective licensing scheme, after a family of landlords was fined more than £16,000 for failing to comply with the system. From April 2019, streets in Birkenhead, Hamilton Square and Seacombe will become subject to selective licensing, which means that all landlords with properties in these areas must apply for a licence to let...
Landlord fined £340,000 in 2017 is now fined another £150,000
02 Dec 2019 A rogue landlord has been fined more than £150,000 after failing to rectify safety hazards in a property he let. Two years ago Rehman was ordered to pay in excess of £340,000 after illegally converting houses into bedsits. A rogue landlord has been fined more than £150,000 after failing to rectify safety hazards in a property he let. Latif Rehman of Birmingham was fined a total of...
Northampton Council takes Landlords house
29 Oct 2020 Northampton council is seeking a so-called Charging Order against a landlord who failed to carry out improvements to her property and then ignored the resulting £12,400 civil penalty. In December 2018, council officers carried out an inspection of the property in the town, owned by Mrs Alle Sabboth. They found multiple category one hazards such as faulty door locks...
HMO Landlords: Guilty Until Proven Innocent
01 Apr 2020 Over the past year we have seen Mandatory HMO licensing increased in scope to include all properties with 5 or more occupants, where they belong to two or more households. Since this we have seen a dramatic increase in the use of prosecutions, civil penalty fines and Rent Repayment Orders against Landlords. Many landlords, doing their best and running what they believe to be good HMO...
It’s Rubbish being a Landlord: 40 Landlords Prosecuted by One Council for Tenants’ Mess
18 Feb 2021 A landlord’s firm has been fined after waste accumulated in the rear yard of a tenanted property. Elahi Properties of Blackburn was ordered to pay £1,259 by a court, comprised of a £750 court fine and £500 costs. The firm was summonsed to appear in court earlier this month after ignoring repeated calls from the local council to take action. In the past year, 40 waste...
Landlord fined £6,000 for not having HMO licenses
A landlord has been fined for not licensing 12 buy-to-let properties in the North Ormesby area of Middlesbrough. John Bradley, 39, was the first landlord to be brought to court for not signing up to the scheme since Middlesbrough Council introduced compulsory £580 licences for those who rent out property in the local area in a bid to crackdown on rogue landlords. But while Bradley admitted to...
Own goal! Failure to licence HMO cost ex-footballer £34,000
23 Feb 2021 A landlord who failed to licence his properties has been ordered to pay back over £8,000 in rent. Dexter Blackstock, a former professional footballer, has been told he has to refund £8,592.98 in housing benefit that he was paid for two unlicensed properties. Blackstock was previously convicted of nine offences of failing to licence properties under Nottingham council's...
Landlords fined over £60,000 over 7 bed HMO
19 Apr 2021 Two landlords of a property in East London have been ordered to pay costs and fines totalling £61,057.05 after they were prosecuted for multiple housing offences. John Renvoize and Dedar Shah owners of a seven bed property in Dagenham were ordered to pay the fines following a case at Romford Magistrate Court. Following an inspection of the property in January 2018, Renvoize...
Landlord who refused to pay for legal assistance gets stung for £28,000 in Rent Repayment Orders
19 Oct 2020 A Landlord who told our firm that he’d rather go out alone than pay £450 in fees for legal assistance has ended up with the inevitable DIY result of a massive Rent Repayment Order for £28,000. "Landlords who think they have the skills that they can handle their own case in the Property Tribunal are for the most part deluded and heading for disaster”, said Phil Turtle compliance...
Leading council has so far fined rogue agents and landlords £100,000
Brent Council is one London's key boroughs leading the charge against poor housing standards. Brent Council, which says it has fined agents and landlords £100,000 since introducing civil penalties last year, revealed it had collected £63,500 of the fines levied and is waiting to collect the remainder under its 49-day payment rules. “When we start the process of issuing a Civil Penalty Notice...
Are you running an HMO without realising it?
How many rooms do you have in your rental property? How many people are living there? Could you be at risk of being targeted by local government's current crackdown on unlicensed HMOs (Houses in Multiple Occupation)? HMOs can be a serious pitfall for landlords, with the potential to cost you large sums of money in penalties and litigation. A couple of recent news items have reminded us how...
Council adopts ‘zero-tolerance approach’ to rogue landlords
A private landlord has been fined by Willesden Magistrates Court for poor and potentially dangerous housing conditions following a prosecution by Brent Council. The prosecution of Monojor Ali, of Cairnfield Avenue, NW2, is one of more than fifty already made this year by Brent Council, which councillor Harbi Farah, cabinet member for housing, says “sends a clear message that the council is...
Tenant in arrears? Text them! New research finds phone calls are too intimidating…
12 Oct 2020 Most tenants claim they are “intimidated” when agents or landlords telephone them about arrears - and they would much prefer a text. Warned Phil Turtle, compliance director with Landlord Licensing & Defence “Thus is potentially scary for landlords as “Intimidation or harassment is one of the reasons that tenants are persuaded to apply for Rent Repayment Orders claiming...
Worthing landlord fined £22,000 for renting out unlicensed HMO
Worthing Borough Council found five people living in dangerous conditions in the property. The flat in Heene Road, Worthing, did not have suitable fire detection, and fire doors to individual rooms had not been installed. There was also no safe fire escape route and the condition of the stairs meant that access was hazardous. As required by law, the landlord had also failed to get a licence for...
New figures reveal thousands of tenants are at risk of death in their properties
New figures reveal thousands of tenants are at risk of death in their properties Shocking stats emerged after two men died in a four-bedroom Edgware home They were living with at least five others in the ramshackle unlicensed property Nearly three quarters of a million people are living in dirty or unsafe homes and thousands of lives are at risk because of rogue landlords, new figures reveal....
Tenant dies in HMO fire – landlord gets 4 months plus fines, Fire Safety Order
28 Oct 2020 A landlord has been prosecuted following the death of a tenant in a house fire at an HMO said to have had inadequate fire safety precautions. The case was brought by Luton council, working with Bedfordshire Police and Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, against landlord Bhagwent Sagoo. The fire broke out at the property on March 27 2019 originating in the first floor...
Nowhere for HMO landlords to hide as Councils turn to Artificial Intelligence
21 Jul 2021 How long does it take for your Council to work out you’re running an unlicensed HMO? Less than one day! This was confirmed for us this week when a worried landlord got in touch with our landlords defence consultancy team. Here’s the situation: Landlord completes on an HMO purchase on the 30th June. On the 1st July one of the London Borough Councils sends the new owner a letter...
Landlord gets £200k fine for planning offence, proceeds of crime and confiscation order
11 Mar 2021 A landlord who illegally turned a London property into 13 flats has been hit by nearly £200,000 in fines, costs and a confiscation order. Inanc Elitok pleaded guilty to ignoring two previous notices at a hearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court, in a case brought by Waltham Forest council. Clyde Loakes, the council deputy leader, says: “Even after being given two enforcement notices for...
Countrywide chain Beresford Adams and landlord together fined £30,000 over HMO
23 Sep 2019 Wrexham council discovers that HMO is unlicensed and that conditions at the property include inadequate fire safety provision. A landlord and her letting agent, 28-branch Countrywide chain Beresford Adams, must pay a total of £32,300 in fines, costs and victim surcharge after an HMO visited by inspectors in Wrexham found it to be unlicensed. Landlord Jane Sabio, who had pleaded...
I would have sent you to prison if I could – Judge tells Landlord
10 Dec 2019 A landlord has been ordered to pay almost £20,000 and has been told by a judge that he was meaner than Scrooge. George Lindsay, from Birmingham, has pleaded guilty of failing to obtain an HMO licence and to 13 breaches of HMO Management Regulations. He has been ordered to pay a fine of £19,970. When issuing the sentence, the district judge commented that Scrooge was a philanthropist...
HMO Landlord ordered to hand over 18 HMOs to Managing Agent & fined £30,000
26 Apr 2021 A landlord has been handed nearly £30,000 in fines and costs after pleading guilty to maintenance and safety failures at three properties. Landlord Naomi Knapp, of Bedminster in Bristol, agreed to pay £2,000 a month for at least the next year to meet the fines, costs and victim surcharges totalling £29,597.59, after admitting failing to meet required standards of management in three...
Huge fine for HMO owner after refusal of planning consent
09 Dec 2020 A long-running case about a house divided up and let out without planning permission has resulted in a fine of nearly £10,000 for the owner. Brighton & Hove council investigated the property back in July 2018. The owner, Shirley White, had divided up the house and was letting it out before she discovered she needed planning permission to convert the property to a house of...
Property manager hit with £10,500 fine for unlicensed HMO
Property manager hit with £10,500 fine for unlicensed HMO A company and the manager of a house of multiple occupation (HMO) in South Hampstead, north-west London, have been hit with a hefty fine following legal proceedings brought by the Camden Council. Manager of the property, Benjamin George Wilson, aged 40 from Barnet, having earlier pleaded guilty to operating an HMO without an HMO licence,...
Tenants suffer fire, but council only interested in prosecution for lack of HMO licence
23 Apr 2021 Following a rental property fire in a house in Hendon, all the council appeared to be interested in was that it had discovered an unlicensed HMO and proceeded to prosecute the landlord “for failing to licence the HMO”. According to the council’s press release: Barnet Council discovered the property was an unlicenced House of Multiple Occupancy (HMO) after being called to the...
Liverpool tries again to implement selective licensing tax
15 Dec 2020 In a cynical attempt to hide their revenue creation motive by stating: “The council makes no profit from the scheme. Every single pound we get from landlords would be ring-fenced, paying for our team [of enforcement officers] to be out on the streets every day inspecting homes, chasing disrepair and taking the strongest action against those landlords who refuse to manage and...
Landlord fined £90,000 for faultless properties
06 Feb 2020 A landlord has been ordered to pay just over £90,000 for repeatedly ignoring selective licensing laws in Brent, north London. Said Phil Turtle a director of Landlord Licensing and Defence, "The Council admits that there were 'no serious concerns' with this landlord’s properties. This fine is not for being a bad landlord - it is purely about the landlord failing to obey the law in...
‘Landlord in Crisis’ Cases Last Week
23 Jun 2020 The last two weeks has been hectic and often people see what we publish and ask what exactly do we do? Well here is the first half covering just some of the things we have covered in the last two weeks, no day is ever boring and it is a long read and these cases are all landlords just like you: Landlords and COVID-19 Covid-19 has meant much more enforcement action against landlords...
Oxford landlord issued financial penalty of £15,624 for HMO offences
An Oxford landlord has been issued a financial penalty of £15,624 for controlling an unsafe House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) in the Cowley area of Oxford. The East Oxford-based landlord, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was investigated after environmental health officers from Oxford City Council visited a rented property on Kames Close in August 2017. The house was found to be an...
Landlord fined £50,000, for failing to licence 2 HMOs
Following a trawl of Letting Agents Web sites properties for let were discovered for rent and had no house in multiple occupation Licences. Harmesh Bagga, landlord of 3 properties let through Ignite Properties to students in Royal Leamington Spa has been fined £50,000 plus costs for failing to properly manage and obtain licences for each of his properties let in multiple occupation Magistrates...
Two Cambridge landlords fined for breaching health and safety standards
Two landlords in Cambridge have been fined for health and safety breaches in their privately rented properties. Following an investigation by Cambridge city council, a local landlord was served with a financial penalty notice of £8951.60 after a property in multiple occupation (HMO) on Garlic Row was found to be unlicensed and had unsatisfactory fire precautions. In a separate investigation by...
Issuing 2,500 Civil and legal Landlord Penalty Notices puts £7/month on every Liverpool Rent
Overall, 70 per cent of inspected properties in Liverpool have been found to be in breach of their licence condition claims Liverpool City Council since their now defunct selective licensing scheme was launched in 2015, uncovering, say the council, serious hazards such as fire risks, poor electrics and excess cold. Liverpool City Council has carried out over 37,000 compliance actions, issued...
Fourth conviction for rogue Beeston landlord
25 Nov 2019 Landlord Jack Collins of Woodlea Road, Yeadon, has been hit with court fines for a fourth time for failing to properly manage his rental properties. On 18 November 2019, Mr Collins was found guilty and ordered to pay £25,324.60 within two months for failing to maintain a property on Sefton Terrace, Beeston. Mr Collins had denied exposing vulnerable tenants to sub-standard housing...
Landlord ordered to behave himself after being abusive towards tenant
21 May 2019 A BTL landlord who lost his cool during a heated exchange with a tenant over unpaid rent has been ordered to be of good behaviour for the next nine months at Jedburgh Sheriff Court. Steven Melville, 53, pleaded guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner by shouting and swearing and struggling with his tenant, William Harley, during the incident in Hawick, Scotland, in...
Landlord without HMO licence fined £20,000
A £20,000 fine has been handed to a landlord and his managing agent for failing to secure a House of Multiple Occupation (HMO) licence for their three-storey property. After its community safety team received complaints about waste storage and nuisance behaviour, Barnet Council discovered 13 tenants living in the house, which is in Edgware. An eight-month-old baby was found living with a couple...
Landlord fined £60,000 for license breaches
A court has fined a Gateshead private landlord £60,000 for committing serious offences under The Housing Act 2004. Mr X. the landlord* of the property in Ridley Gardens in Swalwell, was found guilty of failing to comply with an Improvement Notice and breaching the conditions of his landlord licence by failing to effectively manage his property. Issues with the property, which is located within...
Two Staffordshire landlords fines for health and safety breaches
11 Jun 2019 Two landlords in Staffordshire have been ordered to pay more £5,000 after allowing their tenants to live in poor conditions Brian Kite was fined £256 and ordered to also pay £2,378 in costs and a victim surcharge of £30, while Beryl Kite was fined £207 and ordered to also pay £2,378.88 in costs and a victim surcharge of £30 – a total of £5,279.88, after pleading guilty at North...
Banned but still in business: The rogue landlords exploiting weaknesses in the law
Landlords who have been deemed unfit to rent out their properties continue to operate by exploiting weaknesses in the law. An investigation by ITV News and the Guardian has found landlords continue to collect rent - often from the taxpayer in the form of housing benefit - despite failing “fit and proper” tests which were introduced to improve protection for tenants. The findings raise questions...
Two landlords have been fined for letting out a flat that had no heating or windows.
01 May 2019 Two buy to let investors in Chester have been ordered to pay more than £5,000 for renting out a flat without windows or any form of heating. Following our recent article reporting the Slough landlord who was hiding tenants in their rental property by boarding up the windows, two Chester landlords have been found to be renting out a buy to let property with no windows. The property is...
Battle of Hastings: Upper Tribunal Decision underlines end of Magic Money Tree for Rogue Tenants and their No Win/NoFee allies
17 Mar 2021 In a landmark decision, the Upper Tribunal (Lands) has confirmed that the judgement of the First Tier Tribunal that “Rent Arrears must be accounted for BEFORE rent is eligible to be reclaimed under a Rent Repayment Order (RRO).” This Judgement of the First-Tier Tribunal (in a case defended by Des Taylor of Landlord Licensing & Defence), and now upheld by the Upper Tribunal,...
Rent Repayment Order Magic Money Tree is pretty much dead!
10 Aug 2020 by Des Taylor & Phil Turtle, Landlord Licensing & Defence “Rent Arrears must be accounted for BEFORE rent is eligible to be reclaimed under a Rent Repayment Order (RRO).” At a stroke, this Judgement of the First-Tier Tribunal (in a case defended by Des Taylor of Landlord Licensing and Defence) means that the no-win/no-fee become almost worthless for the lawyers, and far...
Council announces free property licensing!
10 Jun 2021 Instead of charging landlords around £1,000 like most UK councils - for the dubious honour of going into a database - which the council will then use so they can easily inspect properties and issue eye watering fines, Jersey (which is of course part of the UK) is to offer this for free. They did try to charge for it but we’re told by their government that they can only offer this...
Advice for Accidental Landlords
30 Apr 2020 By Des Taylor, Casework Director with Landlord Licensing and Defence Landlords… If your property is being managed by your brother’s sister’s cousin’s sister-in-law, or your best-est friends’ brother-in-law then you face a 90% probability of massive problems in the form of: Unpaid rentRepairs not doneCouncil inspectionsCouncil enforcement action Prosecution Massive Civil...
Dawn raid finds 17 tenants crammed into sub-let HMO
29 Nov 2019 A dawn raid by enforcement officers from a London council has discovered 17 men sleeping on mattresses in a three bedroom Home in Multiple Occupation. The raid followed a tip-off about a suspected unlicensed HMO. A statement from Brent council says the men were paying £50 a week to a head tenant in exchange for accommodation which was described by the local authority as “overcrowded,...
Will Government make Rogue Landlord Database public? Decision awaited
11 Aug 2021 There has still been no formal response to a government consultation on the database of rogue agents and landlords, 25 months after comments were initially requested and 22 months after the exercise closed. The database of rogue landlords and property agents was introduced in April 2018, targeted at agents and landlords who committed the most serious offences - typically those...
£10k fine and Criminal Behaviour Order for illegal eviction by Agent
30 Apr 2021 A lettings agency director has been issued with a Criminal Behaviour Order for unlawfully evicting a tenant back in 2019. CFDP Ltd, trading as Belvoir Nuneaton and Hinckley, along with its director Clayton Foston, have been taken to court by Hinckley & Bosworth council for removing the possessions and changing the locks of a tenant’s flat while the tenant was unwell and...
London landlord gets eye-watering £450,000 fine
Beds in Sheds: Samina Nadeem, of Malborough Road, Southall who had refused to demolish her “beds in sheds” after repeated warnings from the council, now faces a record fine of nearly £450,000 or 4 years in prison. An Ealing councillor described Nadeem as “obstructive and aggressive” and housing her tenants in “Dickensian” conditions. Nadeem had had repeated warnings from the council but still...
Is my Rental Property an Unwitting or Accidental HMO?
Far more properties are HMOs (legally) than owners realise.
So, here’s the simplified rule:
“If your property has three or more sharers – and one or more is not related, IT IS LEGLLY AN HMO.”
And because it is legally an HMO you face massive fines if you don’t comply with the fire, health and other requirements of the Managements of Houses in Multiple Occupation Regulations (England) 2006 as interpreted by the Housing Health and Safety Rating System.
“But I didn’t know it was an HMO.”
Guess what? Just like every other area of British Law, IGNORANCE IS NO DEFENCE.
So…. If your property contains three or more people and just one of them is not related and you haven’t fitted the appropriate:
- Fire Detection and Alarm System
- Fire Doors
- Notices
- Protected Fire Escape Route
- Trip and fall hazard prevention measure
- Emergency lighting (in some cases)
- Keyless exit locks on rooms and external doors
- Safety glass in certain windows and doors
- And completed a Fire Risk Assessment
…then you are at risk of either Criminal prosecution or Civil Penalty fines from the local Council that are usually around £5,000 for each item that you haven’t complied with.
The most important thing to do is to make your property compliant as a matter of extreme urgency.
Preferably before the Council discovers your non-compliances.
Not sure how to do that? Then contact us for urgent advice.
Get In Touch Today!
Success Stories
Newark and Sherwood
Prepared contractual agreement for the lease of residential property to be used for serviced accommodation. Defending landlord against Planning Contravention Notice issued by the Council for alleged change of use from C3 to Sui Generis without permission. Defended landlord against council allegation that Building Regulations had been contravened. Defended landlord against Environmental Health...
Epsom Emergency Licence Application
It was 30th September 2018 at 4pm. This is highly significant because it was just 8 hours before new HMO licensing deadline of 1st October 2018. If an HMO application was not properly lodged by that deadline, significant Civil Penalty fines could apply. While the team was doing a HMO licence application on another property for this Landlord, he suddenly had the realisation that a house he was...
Fire Alarm Manufacturer tells engineer to put tenants lives at risk
By Des Taylor 15 May 2019 One of Landlords Defence’s clients had an inconceivable situation yesterday with a major manufacturer of interconnected smoke and heat detector fire alarm units. Our client had found problems some days ago with the units not working properly on test and had the manufacturer sent some replacements via the post, (reassuring the client that although the faulty ones were...
Kedleston Road
Handled negotiations for the Client, a Tenant Company where the Letting Agent (as they so often do) was wrongly insistent on using an Assured Shorthold Tenancy, which was the incorrect agreement and not fit for purpose. (An AST is for individuals and not for Companies it is Housing Act 1.1 a. One ought to be able to expect better from Letting Agents!) Protracted negotiations, as we discovered as...
Kingston Prohibition Order
Defending a Prohibition Notice for both the Owner and the Subletting Landlord and replacing the subletting Landlord with a more suitable fit and proper Landlord in order to have the prohibition order withdrawn The owner is an elderly man and his daughter was dealing with the property and had let it to a subletting Company who was the Subletting (Rent to Rent) Landlord. The Owner and Subletting...
Liverpool Council hands out 2,000 legal notices, 154 cautions, 89 civil penalty notices and 159 prosecutions
11 Apr 2019 A council has revealed the squalid conditions its inspectors have found when visiting rental properties as it looks to extend its landlord licensing scheme. Liverpool City Council has operated a city-wide selective licensing scheme since April 2015 but is now looking to extend it for five years when it expires in March 2020. Council officials say more rogue landlords have been...
Breaches of planning, overcrowding and licensing: all sorted with no casualties!
21 Oct 2019 Fantastic Morning, taking back a house for a long-established client from a company who had rented it for subletting, not telling the letting agent nor the landlord. None of the employees on the agreement ever lived there, last year it was found to be overcrowded with 10 occupants on a house only supposed to have 5 occupants and they had created a self-contained unit too. Breaches of...
Letting agent gives illegal HMO advice
16 May 2019 PLEASE SHARE WIDELY Des Taylor here. I’ve just been working with a letting agent for a client and found the letting agent had a clear misunderstanding of what constitutes a HMO (House in Multiple Occupation). HMO is formed "when two or more households* occupy a dwelling and the number of occupants is three or more, then a House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) is formed. *...
Battle of Hastings: Upper Tribunal Decision underlines end of Magic Money Tree for Rogue Tenants and their No Win/NoFee allies
17 Mar 2021 In a landmark decision, the Upper Tribunal (Lands) has confirmed that the judgement of the First Tier Tribunal that “Rent Arrears must be accounted for BEFORE rent is eligible to be reclaimed under a Rent Repayment Order (RRO).” This Judgement of the First-Tier Tribunal (in a case defended by Des Taylor of Landlord Licensing & Defence), and now upheld by the Upper Tribunal,...
Rent Repayment Order Magic Money Tree is pretty much dead!
10 Aug 2020 by Des Taylor & Phil Turtle, Landlord Licensing & Defence “Rent Arrears must be accounted for BEFORE rent is eligible to be reclaimed under a Rent Repayment Order (RRO).” At a stroke, this Judgement of the First-Tier Tribunal (in a case defended by Des Taylor of Landlord Licensing and Defence) means that the no-win/no-fee become almost worthless for the lawyers, and far...
Letting Agent held to account by Landlords Defence
19 Jun 2019 11th June saw, for us, the first evidence of the Tenant Fee Ban (TFB) being misunderstood and a residential tenant being charged a £1000 holding deposit on a £1100 per calendar month rental starting 22nd June. On speaking with the tenants’ representative, consulting with the agent indirectly as a secret shopper, to confirm their misunderstanding, we engaged the tenant with the local...
Solihull HMO
The property owner had owned the property for 20 years or so and two years previously had rented it to a corporation that had put 5 occupants into the property. From the 1st October 2018, all properties with 5 occupants, not all related, were required to have a Mandatory HMO (House in Multiple Occupation) Licence applied for by that date. The corporation had agreed that it would carry out the...
Brentford Developer
A property developer had decided to change a three-bed semi-detached house into a 6 bedroom all en-suite HMO. Initially we inspected the property at purchase and contributed to best practice and design aspects to comply with planning use under permitted development and HMO Licensing. As an expense saver and ongoing economy we suggested the removal of gas at the property and use of...
20 Properties. No selective Licences.
A Landlord in the North West had been very ill and hadn’t been able to deal with the requirements of a Selective Licencing scheme introduced by his Local Authority and which affected 20 properties in his portfolio. The deadline was looming and he was unable to take action. We negotiated an extension of the deadline because of his illness and the fact that he had now appointed us to organise and...
Putney – An Unexpected Solution
A Landlord had purchased a property and wanted to know how to turn it into a HMO and operate it legally as serviced accommodation. It was an ex-council terraced property. Turning it into a HMO had not been an issue, however the quality of works which had been undertaken to do so was incredibly bad and would not pass regulations under any circumstances. This owner had not been paying proper...
West London Company Let
The client was renting the residential property to a Company who help vulnerable young adults and was trying to ascertain if the property needed a licence. His tenant was a corporate company which was providing an immigrant orientation service and also providing their living accommodation. On contacting us he had attempted to connect with the local Council a number of times to no response. ...
Judge tears into Northampton Council’s Samantha Ling and her department
14 Jun 2021 In a shocking, and embarrassing for Northampton Borough Council (NBC), determination by Judge Wayte of the First Tier Tribunal property, he went so far as to suggest that the landlord should make a claim for costs against the Council. A move that is almost unheard of, such was his condemnation of Samantha Ling and her department. Ling’s department is well known as priding...
