Is My Rental Property an Unwitting or Accidental HMO?
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...
Landlord in court because buy to let was unclean and unsafe
23 Jul 2021 A landlord who failed to ensure his property was clean and safe for tenants to live in has been prosecuted by a council. An environmental health officer from Oldham council first visited a private rented property in the town in September last year after they received information about a number of faults, including dangerous electrics and a leaking toilet. An Improvement Notice...
Rogue Hayes landlord has 3 months to pay £430k or face jail after illegal HMO
29 Nov 2019 Gurdeep Kaur crammed 15 tenants into a small three-bed home. A landlord from Hayes who pocketed more than £400,000 after illegally turning her home into a home of multiple occupation (HMO) must pay the money back or face jail. Gurdeep Kaur turned a small semi-detached three-bed family home in First Avenue into a house of multiple occupancy without permission from the council. The...
Court fines Landlord £26,000 for rats and cockroaches in un-declared HMO
22 Jul 2020 A pregnant woman was among nine people put “at risk” by their landlords, who allowed their tenants’ home to become infested with rats and cockroaches. Barnet Council says its enforcement officers found a “severe cockroach infestation” at 80 Highfield Avenue in Golders Green, Barnet, while the stairs and flooring had been “partially eaten by rats”. Officers also...
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...
£66,000 fine for landlord letting out HMO with safety failings
15 Jan 2021 A landlord has been hit with what a local authority calls a record £66,000 fine after being found guilty of letting an HMO that was dangerous to tenants. Reading council prosecuted Mohammed Naseer Zamir, following its housing team’s findings at the property in the town between October 2019 and February 2020. Zamir claimed the property consisted of two self-contained flats,...
Whopping fine should ‘serve as a warning to any other rogue landlords’
Whopping fine should ‘serve as a warning to any other rogue landlords’ A rogue landlord in Newmarket who exposed tenants to ‘significant risk’ has been ordered to pay almost £33,000 after being found guilty in court. Russell Wayne Price, 50, of Lisburn Road, Newmarket, was found guilty of 15 charges following prosecution by Forest Heath District Council. Some 13 charges, which related to two...
Millionaire wife of Britain’s biggest buy-to-let landlord who banned single mothers and Indians must pay £25,000 after failing to fix disabled tenant’s hot water for five months
Judith Wilson, 68, failed to fix a disabled tenant's hot water for five months Ashford Borough Council served her a notice after ex-tenants complained She was found guilty of failing to comply with an enforcement notice at a court Wilson was fined £10,000 and she was ordered to pay costs of almost £15,000 A millionaire landlord has been ordered to pay £25,000 after she disobeyed a notice to to...
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...
Rogue landlord in Harrow faces jail if he doesn’t pay £1.5m fine
Vispasp Sarkari convicted after being caught cramming families into squalid properties A rogue landlord who illegally carved up family homes to create cramped bedsits and charged tenants hundreds of pounds a month is facing prison unless he pays what is believed to be a record £1.5m penalty for breaking planning laws. Vispasp Sarkari, 56, from Harrow, north-west London, has been ordered to pay...
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...
Landlords: Protect Yourself against 10 Million New Housing Inspectors
Seminar: What EVERY Landlord needs to know about avoiding massive fines and 'ambulance chasers'. Full day in-depth seminar. Thursday, 5 September '19 12pm - 6pm London SW1 Book tickets here On 20th March this year the Government appointed 10 MILLION new housing inspectors. They are not employed. They are on commission for getting Landlords sued. Which means they are highly...
Landlord punished over safety case
21 Jan 2013 A LANDLORD risked his own tenants' lives by allowing them to stack furniture on a staircase. He has now been prosecuted by the city council for failing to keep the fire escape of his Chorlton property clear. The council decided to take legal action after making a number of visits to Alan Selkirk's property on Oswald Road. Manchester Magistrates Court heard that between September and...
£50,000 fines for Landlord and his company
19 Apr 2021 A property company and its sole director landlord have been convicted and ordered to pay more than £50,000 in fines and legal costs. Francis Investments (East Anglia) Limited, based in Ipswich, and the company’s sole director and owner of the property, Ralph Bernard, were both convicted on 10 charges. An investigation was started into the property by Ipswich council in June 2019...
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...
£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...
Six month custodial sentence for criminal landlord
03 Jul 2019 A Derby landlord has been handed a six month prison sentence following a successful prosecution by Derby City council. Mr Rajinder Narroya was prosecuted by the Derby City Council Housing Standards Team at a case heard in South Derbyshire Magistrates Court on Thursday 20th June. The prosecution related to two offences about rented flats on Uttoxeter New Road, Derby. Following...
BTL landlord ordered to pay more than £25k for unlicensed properties
18 Oct 2019 A buy-to-let landlord in Nottingham has been fined £24,000 and told to pay £1,100 costs as well as a victim surcharge of £170 after being convicted of 12 licencing offences. Dexter Blackstock, 33, was convicted of nine offences of failing to license properties under the Selective Licensing scheme at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court. These properties were in Addison Street, Haydn Road,...
“All hands to the pumps” demands Lord Chancellor as he vows to catch up on Court and Tribunal cases
06 Jul 2020 The Lord Chancellor has agreed that there should be no constraints in the number of sitting days available during the COVID-19 recovery period for the courts or any hesitation in using fee-paid and deputy judges to fill any gaps which cannot be filled by the salaried judiciary, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett and Lord Justice Lindblom have revealed. “It is now all hands to...
Civil penalty notices served on landlords who cannot be named
11 Sep 2020 Two landlords have been served with civil penalty notices for operating unlicensed HMOs. The notices were from Wellingborough council; one was for £6,000 and the other for £8,250. Details of the individuals and properties cannot be disclosed as the penalties are civil sanctions, not criminal, however the council confirms that both landlords were operating licensable HMOs...
Letting agent fined £11,500 for an illegal eviction
29 Oct 2021 A lettings agency has been prosecuted by Birmingham council for unlawfully evicting a tenant. Principal Homes is based at Great Barr and was found guilty under Section 1 of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 of unlawfully evicting Natalia Szergejev from her tenancy in Erdington in June 2019. Principal Homes was fined £10,000 and a victim surcharge of £170, ordered to pay...
Mould in Northwich flat leaves landlord with £2,500 fine
A LANDLORD has been fined almost £2,500 after a Northwich flat tenant complained of excessive mould and a front door they could not close. Nicholas Ian Shaw, 47 and from Norbury's Yard, Knutsford, was convicted at Chester Magistrates Court on Thursday, August 9, after failing to comply with an improvement notice. Mr Shaw had rented out a Victorian terrace flat in Huxley Street to a young family...
Special Offer £71,600 – Rogue Landlord Special
A new case just in. A new slant on property investment: Here we have a landlord with a 6 Bed HMO in the Northern Home Counties. This case is a cookie-cutter duplicate based on a pattern we are seeing on a week in, week out, basis. It starts with a Council realising that there is a property on their patch which might be an unlicensed HMO. They then go into overdrive. The format is usually a...
Landlord fined for keeping tenant’s deposit in a tin
15 Oct 2020 A landlord has been ordered to pay his ex-tenant £1,500 after failing to protect her deposit with an approved scheme. The Housing and Property Chamber First-tier tribunal for Scotland found that Mark Bradley of Gourock had not protected his tenant’s deposit for five and a half years, when he should have protected it within 30 working days of the start of the tenancy. In April 2014,...
London Boroughs of Camden and Newham slated by Housing Ombudsman for SEVERE maladministration
27 Oct 2020 The Housing Ombudsman has named the five social landlords involved in cases where it found severe maladministration in 2019/20. The report, Severe maladministration findings in 2019/20, sets out the case background, the Ombudsman’s assessment and findings, plus the orders made. The cases were: Two involving the London Boroughs of Camden and Newham where there were lengthy delays in...
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...
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...
Landlord fined £15,000 for failing to comply with Improvement Notice
08 Dec 2021 Harrogate Borough Council has announced another win against a landlord. Landlord Kingspark Limited who received a penalty of £15,000 for failure to comply with an improvement notice requiring works at a property on Electric Avenue, Harrogate. Trevor Watson, Harrogate Borough Council’s director of economy, environment and housing, said: “While there are no doubt many landlords who...
Southall landlord fined £70K for HMO regulation breaches
Mr Balwinder Singh Kahlon, the landlord of a property on East Avenue in Southall, received a substantial fine of more than £70K at Ealing Magistrates’ Court as the result of action by Ealing Council. Appearing in court on Friday, 30 October, Mr Kahlon was sentenced for 18 offences of failing to comply with the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006 (Section 234(3)...
Fine for landlord admitting failings
A property management company has been landed with a legal bill of almost £2,000 after admitting that it failed to keep a property in Nottingham in good repair. Nottingham City Council`s Housing Licensing and Compliance team secured a successful prosecution against ADKAM CIC (Community Interest Company) resulting in a fine of £1000 with costs of £836 and a £100 victim surcharge at Nottingham...
Landlords warned over housing rules as £16,000 fine dished out in Wolverhampton
Warnings have been issued to rogue landlords in Wolverhampton after council officers issued a £16,000 penalty to a homeowner flouting the rules. Wolverhampton council handed a Whitmore Reans landlord the huge financial penalty for running a house in multiple occupation (HMO) without a licence. It is the first time the council's housing team issued a civil penalty to a landlord for failing to...
Landlord get £13,850 in fines for no HMO licence
19 Jan 2021 A landlord has been fined £10,000 by her local council for failing to licence a HMO. Tracey Davies of Bath was found guilty in her absence when the case came before magistrates in the city. The local authority - which says it was “acting on information received that the property was likely to be operating as an illegal HMO” - was inspected back in February of last year. The...
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...
Sefton Council entraps Hotel Landlord into providing Free Emergency Accommodation to their Homeless
08 Mar 2021 Sefton council has reached a new low in cynical entrapment in its relentless war against landlords. Like many councils waging war against landlords, they do this in the single-minded pursuit of raising revenue from Landlords’ investments and pensions. So here is how it happened, blow by blow: Michelle Ball, owner of the Cresta Hotel in Southport, understood that she owned a hotel or...
Bristol landlord £5000 Rent Repayment Order
24 Jun 2020 Two Bristol landlords have been ordered to repay nearly £5,000 following investigations by the council’s so called rogue landlord unit. One, Lucy Sherry, was found to have breached the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. She was found to have harassed her tenants, and did so with reasonable cause to believe that her conduct would lead to the tenants giving up occupation of the...
Brighton landlord prosecuted for unlicensed HMO
Brighton & Hove City Council’s planning enforcement team has prosecuted a landlord for letting a Brighton home as a house in multiple occupation (HMO) without a licence, in the first successful prosecution by the council regarding an unauthorised conversion of a house into a small HMO. James Trevor Ford of Maidstone Road, Horsmonden in Kent had made no attempt to secure permission for the...
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...
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...
Government gives Councils £3.8million to increase Enforcement against Landlords
06 Nov 2019 Fresh funding for local councils in England to tackle landlords has been made available, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has announced. The government’s intention is that this money should be used to target true ‘rogue’ landlords - but in practice, it is likely to be used to target all landlords. Housing secretary Robert Jenrick said councils will be...
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...
£10,000 fine per 2-bedroom shared house as Greenwich mounts witch-hunt to raise revenue
10 Jul 2020 Four buy to let investors have each been fined £10,000 for letting out unlicensed HMOs. The unlicensed properties , all in the Greenwich area, include a two-bedroom HMO rented to four separate tenants, a five-bedroom HMO rented to seven separate tenants, and two separate three-bedroom HMOs. A council spokeswoman says: “Every single person in our borough deserves...
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...
Somerset Council warns Landlords could be hit with financial penalties of up to £30,000
9 MAR 2019 North Somerset council is cracking down on rogue landlords Landlords are being warned they face financial penalties of up to £30,000 if they fail to keep their rented properties in good condition. North Somerset Council bosses have issued the warning as the authority steps up its efforts to tackle poor rented accommodation in the area. Officers from the private rented sector housing...
Record £20,000 fine for unlicensed landlord with 62 properties
Local man Charles Baker is to pay fine and costs after failing to gain relevant licences from Rent Smart Wales. A Welsh landlord with 62 apartments within 16 rented properties has been fined a record £20,000 for failing to obtain a licence from Rent Smart Wales to operate them. Charles Baker of Cyncoed Road, Cyncoed, Cardiff was found guilty at the city’s Magistrates Court and will now have to...
HMO deemed dirty & unsafe. Lettings firm fined £21,000
09 Jun 2021 A council investigation found no fire alarms, routes of escape blocked, and a broken window covered with a 'to let' sign A Manchester letting and management company has been fined more than £21,000 after one of their properties was found to have multiple fire safety breaches. Mecca Properties M/cr was found guilty of ‘systematic failings’ at a tribunal following an investigation by...
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...
Landlord gets £2,249 fine and criminal record for illegal eviction
18 May 2021 Landlord Antanas Klibavicius has pleaded guilty to illegally evicting his tenant and not taking any steps towards ending the tenancy properly and legally. Klibavicius, from Sheffield, pleaded guilty to unlawfully depriving his tenant of accommodation contrary to s1(2) Protection from Eviction Act 1977. Taking into account Klibavicius’ early guilty plea, magistrates...
Mandatory Professional Qualification to be a Landlord says Commission
05 May 2020 A commission investigating affordable homes in the UK has called for annual private sector rent increases to be limited to a new index of income growth and for landlords to pay tenants’ removal costs in some circumstances. The Affordable Housing Commission also recommends that “charging more than the permitted rent increase would be an offence, with the landlord facing a fine...
Agents & Landlords urged to beware council crackdown and heavy fines
07 May 2021 A crackdown is now underway withTrading Standards divisions now taking an even stricter approach to enforcement of compliance obligations. This is yet another assault on the wallets of letting agents and landlords in addition to ever increasing compliance enforcement by the growing army of council housing revenue generation police (aka Housing Enforcement Officers).Three recent cases...
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...
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
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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. *...
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...
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. ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
