Two landlords who owned a house where the lives of six tenants were put at risk when it was almost totally destroyed by fire, have been ordered to pay over £22,000.
One tenant, a 25-year-old musician, had to leap for his life down three storeys after being unable to escape from an attic room where he was sleeping but which should have been unoccupied. He suffered injuries including concussion.
Landlords Michael Ciesco and his sister Rosanna Ciesco had ‘wilfully’ disregarded an emergency safety order, magistrates at Redhill, Surrey, were told. They had also failed to license a House in Multiple Occupation.
The pair pleaded guilty to two offences under the Housing Act relating to the house, which caught fire in the early hours of December 4, 2010.
In February 2008, Epsom & Ewell Borough Council’s environmental health officers had visited the address and found it to be “lacking in suitable fire protection and safe means of escape in case of fire”.
Council officers served an emergency prohibition order on the loft room to prohibit the room from use as sleeping accommodation. However, the loft room was occupied, by Charlie Flynn.
When he had to jump for his life, he had to leave behind his guitars worth £3,000 and a rare collection of Beatles records.
Fergus Nash, the council’s environmental health officer, said: “Mr Ciesco and Ms Ciesco blatantly disregarded a law designed to protect their tenants and their property from the devastating effects of fire.
“Landlords are legally required to ensure that the property conforms to the appropriate legislation.”
The chairman of the bench said it was the worst case that he and his colleagues had seen in their combined court experience of over 100 years and that the landlords had wilfully disregarded their obligations.
Ciesco was fined a total of £13,300 and his sister £8,300 for breach of the Housing Act 2004. They were both also ordered to pay £1,121 towards the costs of the prosecution and £15 each towards a victims’ surcharge.
A spokesperson for the Residential Landlords Association said: “This is not so much a case of a bad landlord as of criminal irresponsibility.
“Thankfully such cases are rare.
“It points up the need for local accreditation schemes to allow councils to use scarce resources to better target landlords who violate regulations and for tenants to know better what they should be looking for when renting a property.”
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