A rogue landlord and his company have been found guilty of failing to licence an HMO and breaches of management regulations.
Broadland council officers proved Jubayer Rimon and his company Ambreen Properties were operating an HMO without the required licence, with up to 17 people residing in the four bedroom terraced property in Diss.
The council says this put “the occupants’ health, safety and wellbeing at risk.”
A council spokesperson says: “This is a fantastic result. The Council will not tolerate sub-standard accommodation which puts the lives of residents at risk. HMOs when run responsibly offer much needed low-cost and safe accommodation for residents.
“However, this property was not built for multiple occupation and there were clear safety issues including overcrowding, fire risks and use of limited facilities. The safety of our residents is paramount, and we will not hesitate to take enforcement action when required.”
The council was first alerted about the case in July 2022, and over the following four months undertook an in-depth investigation involving the Norfolk Police and other council and government agencies.
Several visits to the property were made and the landlord’s company was interviewed under caution. However, despite legal notices and other interventions, the problem continued, with spot checks revealing overcrowding.
In December, the council and Norfolk Police visited unannounced and discovered 17 people were staying at the property. Some were sleeping on mattresses on the floor. Two of the occupiers requested to be removed due to the fear of being exploited and were taken into the care of Norfolk Police.
In January 2023, four civil penalties were served upon both the company and the company owner.
However, the civil penalty notices were subsequently challenged and a lengthy legal process was then undertaken resulting in all four offences being secured in the Council’s favour and a total fine of £30,000.
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I dont own any HMO properties and have no time for rouge landlords or rouge tenants. Congratulations for the council to fine this rouge landlord for housing 17 people, now, how much is it going to cost them to re home the 17 people?
How many of those 17 were his tenants I wounder though ? L bet a lot of sub letting was going on there with the landlord powerless to act, goes on a lot now.
Well HM0’s don’t offer much needed affordable accommodation, licensing is one of the factors making accommodation unaffordable with all the added costs.
I assume they are talking about licensable HMO’s.
D Duck my friend not Donald if you own properties I am sure you own HMO’s its not a choice it’s what Council’s impose on you. Many Borough’s now have 3 schemes to catch all including property rented to families ok maybe some are not HMO but are still Licensable maybe you have those.
17 people living there and a £30k fine possibly another miscarriage of justice. How many was on the Tenancy Agreements ?, looks like a huge degree of sub-letting going on.
There must have been a boss man amongst them people don’t turn up off the Street and walk-in uninvited someone was talking money from them and not the Landlords I don’t believe otherwise. The biggest cause of all this is Regulation’s making landlords powerless to Act. I have had all this with Police visiting and Council monitoring even at 2.00 am, I had to fight like mad respond to all communications and rebuff all until they left.
I see there’s another disadvantage of a property Company you get fined twice instead of once.
So many landlords formed Property Companies in good faith with the best landlords advice out there on the back of Section 24, it’s called tax planning ? now government has recategorised it and giving it a new name its now called tax avoidance.
Fines will not deter such rouge landlords. Under the Proceeds of Crime Act, confiscate their properties.
Fery my friend I understand you are getting out as you previously informed us and this seems to be a nasty sting in the tail on exit to suggest such a thing.
Any whiff of Confiscation would collapse the Private Rented Sector over night, granted they could scrap 150 pieces of Legislation and abolish the proposed / THE RENTERS REFORM BILL a much quicker route to achieve what they are trying to do, get rid of Private Landlords.
It’s ROGUE for FS, not ROUGE (a red powder or cream used as a cosmetic for colouring the cheeks or lips.). Jeez!
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