A dawn raid by the Brent Housing Enforcement Team in west London found 11 people crammed into a rundown three-bed semi without an HMO (house in multiple occupation) licence.
Officers were reportedly “disgusted” at the “squalid” living conditions experienced by the tenants, who told the licensing enforcement team that they were paying a combined rent of more than £2,000 to their landlord.
Enforcement officers entered the address in West Hill, Wembley, along with police, following a tip-off from eagled-eyed residents. They found tenants sleeping in every room inside the house, except for the kitchen and bathroom.
The inspection revealed that the property had no fire safety doors and no fire alarm system, damp and black mould covering the walls and ceilings inside the rooms and a polystyrene ceiling giving way inside the kitchen.
Cllr Promise Knight, Brent Council cabinet member for housing, homelessness and renters’ security, said: “It is shocking and horrifying that rogue landlords make a profit from keeping people in dangerous and slum-like conditions like this.
“People in vulnerable circumstances tend not to know what rights they have as renters.
“Rogue landlords who exploit their tenants’ vulnerability will find themselves facing hefty fines and possibly a criminal conviction. We will use whatever powers we have to hold them to account.”
“rogue landlords make a profit from keeping people in dangerous and slum-like conditions like this”
Yes, the landlord should be on top of this, but most occasions its the tenants who are choosing to overcrowd properties and live like this.
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It should be mentioned if each of them had a tenancy agreement, or if this was one person sub-letting the rooms. If the landlord has put all of those people in there knowing that the property was non-compliant then that is disgusting. If however it is a sub-letting situation then that is down to the lead tenant and not the owner.
Some properties are absolutely awful though, and good for the Enforcement team trying to keep the housing standards up.
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We don’t know the full story here, there might be mitigating circumstances the landlord might have rented the place to one person who sublet to others but not doing anything about it makes them a rogue by default. So I am glad that a rogue landlord has been caught. However, the landlord was obviously fulfilling a need to provide cheap accommodation in London (£181/month) . Notice that it was the not the tenants who complained, or detective work by the Local Authority that brought this situation to light it was the neighbours. If they had not complained the situation would probably have just continued. I often wonder what becomes of the displaced tenants in these situations. I like to think they end up better off in decent long term accommodation they can afford but somehow I doubt it, they probably end up just drifting off to other rogue Landlords as only they can provide a roof over their head at prices they can afford.
These tenants are not rich, they are forced into this accommodation not because of the rogue landlord but because they are poor in one of the richest cities in the world. It is a pity that our economic climate is such that rogues can exist.
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Another great example of how the Selective Licence Scheme (Local Landlord Tax) was enforced and really got to grips with those rogue landlords……not.
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It tends to hit the good landlords and many rogue landlords manage to slip through the net.
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