Is My Rental Property an Unwitting or Accidental HMO?
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...
Just Move Estates fined £10k for failing to install smoke alarms in rented house in Leyton
Just Move Estates in Hoe Street, Walthamstow, had claimed that tenants removed three smoke alarms from the house on Melford Road, Leyton, but upon inspection, council officers found no evidence they were ever installed. They were fined by Waltham Forest Council, using powers from the Housing & Planning Act. The council issued a civil penalty against Just Move Estates, which the company...
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...
Repayment and banning orders may be applied to landlord
06 Dec 2019 A council says it is considering seeking a banning order and a rent repayment order against a landlord already fined over £150,000. The landlord’s offences included failing to rectify safety hazards in a property to let. Latif Rehman of Birmingham, was fined a total of £151,070 by Wolverhampton Magistrates Court for three breaches of an Emergency Prohibition Order served in relation...
£40k fine for unsafe scaffolding at house
26 May 2022 Kent-based RPS Scaffolding Ltd has been fined following an incident where the scaffolding the company erected collapsed, injuring two workers. Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that in August 2020, two workers were injured when the scaffolding they were working from on Thorpebank Road in London collapsed. An HSE investigation found that RPS Scaffolding Ltd erected a scaffold to...
Suspended sentence for Fire Risk Assessor and warning to Landlords
02 Jul 2021 A fire risk assessor who provided an inadequate assessment for a residential block in Southampton has been fined and given a suspended prison sentence, following a prosecution brought by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service. Commented Phil Turtle, Compliance Director with Landlord Licensing & Defence, “This is just one of many examples of the risks if a Fire Risk...
Council encourages tenants to get Rent Repayment Order against Landlord
21 Mar 2022 A London landlord has been fined £5,000 for letting an unlicensed HMO. The fine was issued after the landlord ignored repeated warnings from Hackney council to obtain a license to continue letting the property. The landlord appealed the fine to the First-Tier Tribunal, which upheld the decision in a virtual hearing. Hackney’s HMO licensing scheme, which requires landlords to...
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...
Oxford landlord convicted of repeat HMO offences
An Oxford landlord has been convicted for the second time in 12 months for operating an unlicensed House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) and ordered to pay a total of £6,146 in fines and costs. The investigation followed a fire in the house which had a faulty fire detection system. Mr Zahid Ali Rana, 58, of Boundary Brook Road, Oxford, was prosecuted after environmental health staff from Oxford...
Landlord £300,000 property confiscated for planning breach & faces prison
26 Oct 2020 A London landlord who ignored six enforcement notices served by his local council has been ordered to pay over £300,000. Salim Mussa Patel from Southall has been made the subject of a confiscation order for £207,000, has been fined £50,000 and made to pay the council’s costs of £49,198. Mussa Patel was given three months to pay the confiscation order or face three...
Landlord handed two-year ban and £41k bill for putting tenants’ lives at risk
A man who rented out rooms above a town centre bar has been banned from being a landlord after putting the lives of his tenants at risk. Dean Dunkley, 41, of Dunchurch Road in Rugby, has also been ordered to pay more than £41,000 in legal costs by the magistrates after he was found guilty of a number of offences. The prosecution was brought by Rugby Borough Council after several inspections of...
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...
Landlords advised to watch out as Councils accused of not issuing enough Rent Repayment Orders
March 29, 2019 Councils in England have been accused of failing to use powers to tackle rogue landlords in the private rented sector. A response to a parliamentary question this week on the use of rent repayment orders (RROs) revealed that just three have been issued by local authorities to claw back Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit paid through rent in the 18 months to...
Landlord fined £6,000 after rat droppings and disrepair
22 Apr 2021 A landlord has been fined £6,000 for failing to properly maintain a HMO in Reading. Nidan Singh, 76, has also been ordered to pay council costs of £1,956 and a victim surcharge of £181. Council officers inspected the property twice in 2019 and discovered a rat entry point and rat droppings in the kitchen.In addition, the fire detectors were found to be faulty; a bathroom...
£130k in fines for banned agency director and landlord because of unlicensed HMO
13 Jun 2022 The sole director of a lettings agency, who was recently made the subject of an anti-social behaviour injunction and banning order, has been found guilty and sentenced for controlling an unlicensed HMO and providing unsafe housing for its tenants. Mohammed Ali Abbas Rasool, sole director of Blackstone Vertu Limited, and the landlord and owner of the HMO, Asrah Rasool, were found...
Lettings agent jailed after £182,000 fraud
20 Sep 2021 A lettings agent has been jailed for three years for defrauding tenants and landlords out of more than £182,000. Lee Clarke, 42, of Park Corner, Windsor, was director of Berkshire Estate Agents in Slough. He disappeared in 2019 after being investigated by Slough Trading Standards and was expelled from The Property Ombudsman for failing to pay money back to complainants as...
HMO landlord fined after Barnet Council investigation
A landlord has been ordered to pay £2,650 in fines and costs after failing to licence a House of Multiple Occupation (HMO), following a successful prosecution by Barnet Council. Investigators discovered that the two-storey property in Hamonde Close, Edgware, was housing seven people during an evening inspection by the council’s Private Sector Housing Enforcement Team. They wrote to the owner,...
Three rogue lettings agents expelled by The Property Ombudsman
24 Oct 2019 The Property Ombudsman has expelled three lettings agencies from its scheme because of unpaid awards to landlord clients. The first is Kingsman Property Limited (trading as Kingsman Property) in Essex, which owes a landlord £14,921.23. A landlord made a complaint to The Property Ombudsman after claiming that the agent failed to pass on rent owed to him, which had been paid by the...
HMO landlord hit with £40k fine
04 Oct 2019 City of Lincoln Council has taken action against a House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) landlord in Lincoln for failing to comply with a number of safety breaches under the Housing Act 2004. Julie Churchill who was responsible for an unlicensed HMO at 135 Monks Road, LN2, has been fined £40,000 for letting out a dangerous HMO that was also unlicensed. Lincoln Magistrates Court heard...
Landlord fined for ‘extremely dangerous’ rental property
A private landlord has been ordered to pay just over £1,000 after being found guilty of providing an ‘extremely dangerous’ rental property that was in a poor state of repair. Lincoln Magistrates’ Court heard that landlord Joe Burgess, of Newark Road, Lincoln, had failed to comply with housing regulations for his rental property in Newtoft, which consisted of unsafe electrics, no heating, severe...
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...
Quashing Improvement Notices – It’s a win!
28 Apr 2022 It has been an excellent day today with a council in the Midlands. Improvement Notice issued on massive HMO.Many errors and over-egging, by young aggressive "Enforcement Officers" in the notice. Today, the council's legal department agreed it was over aggressive and that the Tribunal would quash the notice on Ground 1 of the appeal alone, and that even though they did not agree with...
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...
Landlord hit with £66,000 bill after sending in heavies to kick tenant out
27 Jun 2019 A rogue landlord has been ordered to pay a £60,170 fine and £6,000 court costs after being found guilty of making tenants’ lives a misery. The fine is the biggest financial penalty that Brent Council in London has secured to date. The council says it is a reflection of the “truly appalling conditions” tenants were living in. Hugo Pulqueiro sent in the heavies to remove the belongings...
Unlicensed landlord ordered to pay over £2,600
A private landlord has been fined £2,000 for renting out two properties in Peterborough without a licence which he was legally obliged to obtain under the city council’s selective licensing scheme. Kevin Wagstaff, who lives in Eye, was found guilty in his absence at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court last week for letting two properties on Atkinson Street and Saltmarsh without a licence, despite it...
Bristol Council Starts Cynical campaign to bankrupt Landlords
13 Jul 2020 In another cynical move by landlord-hating councils, Bristol Council is encouraging tenants in the town who believe they have been mistreated by landlords to seek punitive rent repayment orders. Said Phil Turtle, director of Landlord Licensing & Defence “The only conclusion one can draw is that this is purely vindictive.” The main reason for the grant of Rent Repayment Orders is...
London Borough of Camden secures ASBO injunction & exclusion zone against landlord
30 Jul 2021 Camden council in north London has become the first local authority to secure an anti-social behaviour injunction against a landlord in order to protect private tenants from illegal eviction and harassment. The council secured the injunction against landlord Mohammed Ali Abbas Rasool, aged 29. Working in partnership with the Met Police, Camden brought the case against Rasool after...
Stoke-on-Trent landlords fined almost £1,800 & more will be prosecuted
Two landlords have been told to pay almost £1,800 - after failing to apply for a relevant licence. Both Sarah Machin and Mohammed Ashraf failed to apply for the licence within a selecting licensing areas in Stoke-on-Trent. The initiative had previously been rolled out by Stoke-on-Trent City Council with leaders claiming the scheme is aimed at raising the condition of rental properties. And the...
Harrow rogue landlord’s nightmare flat left tenants at ‘imminent risk of death’
2 May 2019 The building was cold, filthy, structurally unsound and a firetrap with gaps on the stairs and no washbasin. A Harrow landlord rented out such a disgusting home that his nine tenants were at "imminent risk of death". The problems at the Harrow home began with a dangerous bed bug infestation, but conditions were revealed to be so bad, that even after an £11,000 fine in the courts,...
Council with Most Prosecutions of Agents and Landlords is Named
Camden has been revealed as the local authority with the highest number of prosecutions of agents and landlords in London. According to the Mayor of London’s rogue landlord and agent checker, launched last December to assist Londoners in securing affordable homes with the knowledge that their agent or landlord has not committed previous offences, Camden has prosecuted on 59 occasions and put 35...
Bath pair fined £16k for holding wrong HMO licenses
Two landlords in Bath have been ordered to more than £16,000 for failing to hold the correct HMO licences. Elizabeth Vowles, 48, and Hayley Book, 55, from Weston pleaded guilty at Bath Magistrates’ Court to the offence under the Housing Act 2004. The court was informed that the pair were caught operating two HMOs in the Additional Licensing Area without a licence in January 2017, despite the...
CIEH to Train Housing Enforcement Officers to Prosecute Thousands More Landlords
04 Mar 2022 Poor housing quality is a serious issue affecting the public health and mental health of the UK population, yet 18% of homes in the Private Rented Sector (PRS) fail the government’s decent homes standard. Enforcement is a key part of improving housing, yet there is a lack of qualified and experienced housing enforcement officers, and many councils have lost...
Landlord ordered to pay more than £20k
A buy-to-let landlord has been convicted of nine counts of breaching regulations for a house in multiple occupation (HMO) that he owned in Colchester and ordered to pay in excess of £20,000. Poor heating and mould in the four-bedroom property were among the issues flagged up by the disgruntled tenant as he issued a complaint to Colchester Council in December 2015. Thomas supplied portable...
University acts Criminally putting Landlords in Danger of Prosecution
23 Oct 2020 Following the recent revelation that the University of Warwick is dumping hundreds of private landlords in favour of its own student accommodation , it has today come to light that as part of this strategy it appears to have deliberately put landlords subject to Coventry City Council’s controversial Additional Licensing scheme at risk of prosecution and massive fines. These landlords...
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...
Letting agency hit with £10,000-plus fine for smoke alarm failings
Letting agency hit with £10,000-plus fine for smoke alarm failings A London council has fined a letting agency over £10,000 for failing to install smoke alarms in a rental property. Waltham Forest council has prosecuted Just Move Estates, located in Walthamstow, using powers under the Housing and Planning Act. The agency claimed that tenants had removed three smoke alarms from a rental property...
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...
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...
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...
£64,000 fine for HMO without planning permission
20 Jan 2022 A dodgy landlord from Kentish Town has been ordered to pay more than £64,500 for breaking housing regulations in Barking. Sumon Miah of Mortimer Terrace, off Highgate Road, was recently sentenced for breaching a planning enforcement notice on the Ripple Road property, which was being used illegally as a house in multiple occupation (HMO). He was ordered to pay a £15,000...
Landlord convicted of unlawfully evicting tenant now fined for running unlicensed HMO in Telford
Feb 21, 2019 A landlord from Telford who had previously been convicted of unlawfully evicting a tenant has now been fined for running an unlicensed house in multiple occupation. In March 2017, David Beattie admitted threatening violence against a tenant in his property in Dudmaston, Hollinswood. Shropshire Magistrates Court sitting in Telford on Monday heard that Beattie, of Priorslee, was not...
Capitol Riot Suspects Self-Incriminate Just Like Landlords Do Every Day
19 Jan 2021 Capitol riot suspect Aaron Mostofsky (Source: New York Post, as cited in criminal complaint) Many of the insurrectionists who marched on the UA Capitol building on Jan. 6 and violently forced their way into the building stupidly livestreamed their activities or boasted about them via social media. So far, those self-identifying actions have helped law...
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...
Rent Repayment Order £8,975 against Landlord who failed to have Selective Licence
March 2016, Case summary by Phil Turtle Landlord Licensing and Defence By ignoring Selective Licensing, this landlord lost £13,000 and gained a criminal record. Local Authority, the London Borough of Newham (LA), applied for and won a Rent Repayment Order against Ms P. relating to a property in Malvern Road, East Ham, London E6. The Local Authority has introduced a Selective Licensing scheme...
Oxford City Council has collected a total of £31,606 in penalties for housing offences from its first three cases since the introduction of new financial penalty powers
Oxford City Council has collected a total of £31,606 in penalties for housing offences from its first three cases since the introduction of new financial penalty powers to help crackdown on rogue landlords and improve safety for renters. In the biggest of the three fines, a landlord who owns a rented property on Garsington Road received financial penalties totalling £25,298 for failing to...
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...
Landlords ordered to pay more than £6k for HMO failings
16 May 2019 A buy-to-let landlord has been ordered to pay more than £6,000 in relation to 12 charges under the Housing Act after council officers found numerous breaches of regulations at a house in multiple occupation ( HMO ) ranging from defective windows to failing to produce a gas safety certificate. Mahmut Gilgil, of Blandford Road, BH15, was convicted of a series of failings at the HMO,...
Landlord Fined £2000 for substandard property
07 Oct 2019 A buy-to-let landlord in Sutton has been ordered to pay more than £2,000 after failing to provide acceptable living conditions for his tenants. Jonathan Patrick Hoey was found guilty of breaching an emergency prohibition order by the district council issued two months earlier. The action was taken in relation to a property he owned on Seagate Farm in Long Sutton, Spalding,...
BTL landlord ordered to pay £9,500 for failing to maintain property
02 Mar 2020 A buy-to-let landlord in Liverpool has been ordered to pay almost £9.500 after failing to provide acceptable living conditions for his tenant. John William Kildare was found guilty of failing to comply with an Improvement Notice after allowing his tenant to live in dangerous conditions. According to Liverpool City Council, the Hanford Avenue property, in Orrel Park, had a long list...
A Hertfordshire landlord has pleaded guilty to 28 offences resulting in a fine of over £20,000.
The convictions related to two private properties in the Hatfield area. 23 offences applied to one and the last five applied to the other. The first property, a HMO in Fern Dells, had failures with gas, electric and fire safety ad was therefore potentially dangerous for tenants. Extensive damp and mould was also found by the local council. There was also disrepair to windows and doors. The five...
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
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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. ...
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...
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. *...
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...
