Landlord who crammed 15 tenants into three-bed house ordered to pay £430k

As a landlord, when I see such headline news I just laugh. The Judiciary are blind, the councils are lazy, powerless and useless, people are sleep walking like zombies.

Britain needs cheap labour and rely heavily on immigrants. Where do you think these imimgrants live? They live in such over crowded houses. The agents will rent say 3 bed house to 3 people, let's say a couple and their relative, they will sublet and no body cares this happens.

When such a slum tenant becomes a landlord or when landlords see they can make more money as in any event these people are going to sublet anyway, they will run it as an unlicensed HMO.

When law-abiding landlords contact the councils about HMO, usually the only point of information is what ever they have on their website. When you apply, they take your money and don't contact you for months or years in some cases.

I say these problems are created by the governments of the day and the councils, which intern is elected in by the people of this country. If I form a group that targets such slum homes and sue the councils, the landlords and the lead tenants. I can create a housing crisis, labour crisis and may be a recession??

As for this fine, if they employ the right lawyers, may get it reduced too as happened in a case in Birmingham.

I think, every time such case ends up in court, the council must be made to pay 50% of the fine and costs for not having the correct procedures in place to stop this problem.

• Terry Sullivan
• 19 December 2019 19:58 PM

uk needs no imported cheal labor--never has done

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Fair enough, Pat.
However, with news like this, nothing stops people thinking that all Landlords are bad. I try my best to be a good Landlord, I keep within the rules, I pay my dues, transfer the deposits, I do everything within the regulations put to me - but yet, I'm still considered a rogue!! Thanks to bast***s like this.
You can laugh, Pat, but I'm just despairing and I feel very let down.

• Andrew townshend
• 19 December 2019 17:47 PM

I think the landlords name says it all.

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Daniela,
I laugh out of desperation than anything else. This country is divided by class or class based ideology. You as a landlord fall into the middle or upper class category in their eyes. It doesn't matter what this type of person does you won't be liked by the common public.
This lady is in the situation she is in because she didn't cooperate with the council in fixing what ever she had, not because she was doing this. I can say this without knowing anything of this case other than what is in the article.
If the council have no program of advising and working with potential landlords from the start, some will become rouge and some will become good landlords.

It didn't say how many were on Tenant Agreement, or if the 15 were paying rent to the Landlady or whether sub-letting was involved by the Tenants which I suspect it may well be the case as she would have be powerless to Act and excluded from the property law yet be responsible for everything for everything outside her control, this is very common which is why LL are suffering in silence and hoping for the best. In any case its no laughing matter.

• 19 December 2019 21:06 PM

Potentially there is a case for EVERY AST to be registered with the relevant Council.
I doubt any good LL would have any issues with doing so.
Yes a bit of hassle but at least the Council will know who the LL expects to be occupying the property.
Any difference to that should mean the LL is not to blame for tenant breach of contract.
After all a LL can hardly force a tenant to take in more occupants than the AST states!
Of course such a process would cause mass homelessness as the Councils would be able to check whether the LL has the RTR their property to tenants of whatever type.
You could call it a quaisi LL register but I see no issue with that being the case.
The Councils that such a policy should be rolled out to is any area where there is a large percentage of ethnic minorities as it is these areas where most illegal occupation occurs
Also where most of the rogue LL exist.
Simple facts

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I would have no problem with that and I believe they know already anyhow in many cases from the licensing schemes, as when I apply for a license in some Boroughs they require a copy of Tenancy Agreement with the application. Apart from that I know many tenants will be approaching the Local Authority with their copy to claim something that I will not necessarily be made aware of as there is collusion between Council & Tenant in this respect (tick the box if you don't want LL to know).

Of course there are some areas remaining in the UK NOT subject to Selective or Additional Licensing.
There remains therefore an intractable problem for Councils to ensure that overcrowding or illegal occupation DOESN'T occur.
The data is simply not made available to Councils.
As such Councils are up against it when endeavouring to ensure compliance with regulations.
This is why to ensure Regulatory compliance ultimately a NATIONAL LL REGISTER is required.
Having such a Register would make things far easier to enforce regulations against those that don't bother to register.
Again good LL WON'T object providing it costs nothing it very little to be a registered LL.
One LL fee of about £100 for any properties in a particular Council area for a 5 year term.
Regulatory enforcement would be a lot easier for Councils if they knew who all the good ones were.
By implication the rogues WON'T bother registering.
For those LL that have registered they must face random inspection to add credibility to a LL Licensing regime.
Most good LL would accept that this is part of a process which could drive rogue LL out of business or to change their ways.
But ultimately Govt DOESN'T want Councils to detect all illegal lettings as Councils would then have to house the illegal occupants.
So lip service will continue to be paid towards serious regulation of LL etc.

A landlord's register will be a way to make money for the councils. Croydon council charges around £750 or £800 to put you on their Landlord's register. You fill this form online and pay. After couple of years you will get a letter saying that your application has been accepted and you are in the register.
It is only a way of making money out of landlords and nothing else.

• Andrew townshend
• 20 December 2019 09:10 AM

Making money out of tenants, all additional costs are passed on by an increased rent.

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The tenants can only pay a certain amount, after that they either give Landlord trouble and get kicked out, end up in some doggy B&B through the council decide they don't want their children to live with addicts and move to rogue landlord's property or move to cheaper options with same rogue landlords. Which ever route they take the system will push these people to rogue landlords as that is all they can afford.
So as long as you have people in this desperate situation rogue landlords will flourish. The reason this will not be dealt with is simple - it is mostly immigrant communities where this happens.