A landlord and his letting agent have both been fined and given criminal records for failing to license his rental property and ignoring their tenants’ pleas for essential repairs, including to the house’s broken boiler.
Despite repeated warnings from officers from Brent Council’s private housing services team, Khalid Latif and his agents PMC Management and Collections are said to have done nothing to bring the property in Willesden, London, up to a licensable standard.
The six tenants who lived in the four-bedroom property approached the council to complain about its poor living conditions, which included no hot water or central heating, rotten and damp fittings and scant regard for basic fire safety principles.
Latif was earning over £2,500 per month in rent from it.
Brent Magistrates Court heard that Brent Council had repeatedly contacted both Latif and PMC Management and Collections over the course of eight months and visited the house on several occasions to find no repairs had taken place.
They were both convicted of failing to license the property.
The magistrates considered the hazards found in the house as aggravated circumstances and fined both Latif and PMC Management and Collections £9,500, with £695 each in costs and £120 each in victim surcharge – a total bill of £20,630.
Cllr Harbi Farah, Brent Council’s lead member for housing, said: “Unlicensed, unsafe properties like this are a danger to the entire community and it is unacceptable that anyone in London should have to rent a property that lacks basic facilities like hot water.
“The vast majority of landlords and lettings agents in Brent are honest and law abiding, but we take a zero tolerance approach to the minority who think they can treat their tenants like this.”
Hmm, the fine is not enough for the blatant disregard of the regulations, the landlord will have made twice as much in rent than he was fined so where is the incentive to comply?
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I will never understand what planet this sort of landlord is on, taking so much money yet completely incapable of spending a small portion of it to provide basic facilities.
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He’s on planet Loadsamoney
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On behalf of PMC:
We have just been made aware of this judgment by this article.
We have not received any notification about this property from Brent Council at any point. The landlord served us a section 21 in 2015, for us to vacate the property as he was unwilling to license it. This was because he preferred having “a family” living there. We vacated the property on February 2016.
The below claims are false:
“The six tenants who lived in the four-bedroom property approached the council to complain about its poor living conditions, which included no hot water or central heating, rotten and damp fittings and scant regard for basic fire safety principles.”
There were never 6 people occupying the property and one of the 4 people occupying the property was one of our employees.
“Brent Magistrates Court heard that Brent Council had repeatedly contacted both Latif and PMC Management and Collections over the course of eight months and visited the house on several occasions to find no repairs had taken place.”
PMC has never received any notification or contact from Brent council regarding this property; therefore we have not been able to defend or dispute any allegations or case against us. We will appeal to this judgment.
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