A council has prosecuted a landlord for letting out two HMOs without a licence and failing to comply with HMO Management Regulations.
Mohammed Ammar Hussain of Hemel Hempstead pleaded guilty to offences relating to two separate properties for failure to apply for an HMO licence, plus three offences of failing to comply with management duties in relation to property conditions - this included a lack of working fire alarms.
At St Albans Magistrates' Court, Hussain was ordered to pay fines of £13,450, a victim surcharge of £2,000 and £29,856 prosecution costs - a total of £45,306.
The properties in Hemel Hempstead were first discovered in September 2022, when Dacorum council executed a warrant at three addresses. The investigation found the properties to be operating illegally as HMOs and that there were multiple hazards to residents.
The council returned in January 2023 due to the landlord’s failure to submit licence applications. Officers discovered that two of the properties were still operating as unlicensed HMOs and the landlord had failed to put right all of the hazards.
A council spokesperson says: “We recognise that most landlords are responsible and law abiding, caring deeply about providing the highest standards in their home.
"However, there is a small minority of landlords who choose not to comply with the law and their tenants suffer as a result. I’m very proud of the team for achieving this excellent result on behalf of our residents.
“It demonstrates our Housing Strategy commitment to championing the provision of safe, warm, and dry homes across the borough and putting our residents at the heart of everything we do."
Since October 2018, any property that has five or more unrelated tenants who share communal facilities requires a mandatory HMO licence. If you operate a property without a licence you could face an unlimited fine or a civil penalty of up to £30,000 per offence.
Want to comment on this story? Our focus is on providing a platform for you to share your insights and views and we welcome contributions.
If any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.
Please help us by reporting comments you consider to be unduly offensive so we can review and take action if necessary. Thank you.
.jpg)
%20(002).png)
.png)
Join the conversation
Jump to latest comment and add your reply
So out of the £45k the ‘victim’ gets £2000. I suppose the LL now gets it in his thick head that he needs an HMO licence to let out rooms in a house. No real sympathy here.
Who’s the winner here? Drumroll…… Council doing the usual cash grab thing
The “victim” is the Treasury.
That said I have no sympathy for a landlord who ignores Council advice, especially regarding fire alarms. No doubt, when she crawls out of bed, SBR will be castigating ROUGE 😂landlords and wanting them sent to the seventh level of hell.
Annoyed - don’t forget lefty James Turner 😀
Well he had the warning but Council didn’t give him much time to rectify from September to January is not a long time, with the place occupied and would be impossible to carry out much work in order to apply for a license if it was only a
matter of apply everyone would have them. I don’t understand the article and what happened to the third Property was that now licensed or Compliant.
Did those 2 properties have fire doors and all the other documentation required to make the Application or just the Alarms. There are hundreds of thousands of those type of properties they are going to be busy.
I didn’t see anything about a Rent Repayment Order to Tenants as apposed to ridiculous prosecution fee of £29’000.00 how do they justify that of course they can’t but I suppose they are Regulated by The Financial Ombudsman that’s ok then like Solicitors charging £300/350 ph for a bit laptop paper work.
Anyway I can see a lot more Landlords head for the door, do the Council think those Tenants would be better Homeless than living in this property or how would the Tenants afford one of those new built Compliant properties. Maybe the Council would like to house them in one of their unregulated properties.
Michael,
We don't know how many people were living there, if the licensing was mandatory or additional or what. We don't know if he had to get planning in order to license?
However, the council was not interested in fixing the issue. They need money and so they will fine you.
The problem with this is that half the people they evict cannot afford the new high rents and end up at the council. They often end up in council places where the HMO regulations don't apply.
So the council has achieved their two goals, get rid of small landlord and made some money.
I was offered £500 more to rent a terraced house to one of these agent/contractors who are supplying non-HMO ready property to the council to use as an HMO. So if the agent takes another £500, now the council is paying £3000 pcm for a house rented privately for £2000. Not only that, the house has no fire doors or smoke alarms in the rooms etc.
So on the one hand they don't have any money and are playing dirty games to get it, while overpaying rents to accommodate the very people they evicted in houses that are no more suitable than where they were evicted from.
Who was the victim?
The victims will end being the tenants, the LL being forced to pay the licencing fee and fine, which will all have to be passed on to the tenants in increased rent.
Alternatively the LL will be forced to sell the property to pay the fine, evicting the tenants to do so.
Well is it alright to flout the law and it's possible it could affect tenants..Pity he wasn't jailed ok.
SBR is off on her hang 'em, flog 'em and jail 'em rant again.
Annoyed. The country would be in a lot better shape if we adopted that approach to benefit claimants 😀
@ Nick - not to mention the boat people.
@ Annoyed. We can’t forget them too. There’s far too many economically inactive people around. SBR being one of them.
Wait till Sir Kneel and Darth Rayner get in - the floodgates will be open and boats will not be needed.
His name tells me all I need to know
Well, at least there's one less Rogue out there thanks to this council.
What a tragedy that generally Councils cant stop bullying and fleecing the vast majority of compliant landlords who have now decided enough is enough.
So the real victims are the tenants, who receive just £2k from £45k.
Make it make sense. Cash Grab.
The tenants don’t receive it, the treasury get it. In other words another tax..
Really Peter. The treasury get the victim award? Annoyed said the same. How can that be
Johan, the government are money grabbing bar stewards and if Labour get in, you will see even more grabbed. 😡
It's all in the name
The tax and the high cost of doing the work is off the scale, do we need to be attacked from every angle as well.
I bought a 25 litre tin of roof seal today £200.00 + 20% VAT another £40.00 as well as been 45% tax payer, why do I bother you get punished every time you do something good
I seen young people about 30 years of age all day looking at their phones and don’t tell me they were working I know the difference its ridiculous they are targeting the wrong people.
I know exactly how you feel Michael; I took down part of a ceiling today!
The Landlord Deposit Blog today about the illegal back extension the Tenants built. It had to be Removed on Tenants exit but Tenants said they had no money. They had paid a Deposit of £1800. and Landlord Quoted £1800. to Remove it which was granted.
A very Cheap Quote and not feasible to my mind. I observed a Council Contractor Remove a Similar back garden illegal Building and they Charged the landlord £20’000. I have the video & photographs.
Naughty Landlord. But does the punishment fit the crime?
But more importantly for me, we've got a bad landlord here, we've found him and prosecuted him. But shun't this be happening to ALL BAD landlords instead of Selective Licensing and all another retrospective rules regs changes targeting ALL US GOOD landlords who's done nothing wrong?
Anyway this landlord was fined £45k for having 2 unlicensed houses & 3 other non-compliant charges.
The fines and fees have increased a lot another case in Newham some years back involving 92 properties Rent 2 Rent no license apparently and 7 individuals in the group were fined £79k including costs that netted £1.25m,
Had used false names and various
Companies that they quickly dissolved.
Just seems much higher fines for landlords that own the property as apposed R2R merchants creaming off the top.
SO where are the prosecutions of criminal councils forcing their tenants to live in sub human and dangerous properties and taking 28 months to do essential repairs , or the council with three thousand properties without a gas safety test for six years , not fined a single penny not even a slap on the wrist
this tells you everything you ever needed to know about british justice sell up now or better still yesterday, there are plenty of other countries in need of housing where you will be treated fairly the same as every other business
and not subject to the increasingly vicious hate crime on a daily basis
In it for the rent. It's a pity he wasn't jailed as well.
I agree, jail for him IF and ONLY IF we can jail rogue tenants for not paying their rent too.
Please login to comment