16th December 2024
Rogue Landlord Fined For Fire Safety Breaches

What’s Happened?
A rogue landlord was recently prosecuted after admitting to turning a three-bedroom bungalow in Surrey into a 15-room unlicensed House of Multiple Occupation (HMO).
Runnymede Borough Council prosecuted the landlord after anonymous tip-offs that the bungalow was being used illegally as an unlicenced HMO. The key breaches were as follows:
- Operating a licensable House of Multiple Occupation without a licence
- Failure to supply a Gas Safety Report
- Failure to comply with fire safety regulations
- Failure to undertake a Fire Risk Assessment
- Failure to comply with a number of regulation requirements relating to the size of the rooms and access to washing facilities, etc
On 27 November, District Judge Cooper ruled that the landlord should be fined £12,000 and ordered to pay a £2,000 victim surcharge. The fine was initially set at £18,000 but was reduced by the Judge due to an early guilty plea.
Anonymous tip-offs
The landlord and her brother are understood to have initially been aggressive and threatening toward the Council staff who tried to visit the property to find out how many people lived there. They even claimed they would undress a baby to create a safeguarding issue to try to stop visits from occurring.
Council workers eventually had to apply for a warrant to enter the building. When they did gain access they hey found shoddy construction methods had been used to create 15 living spaces, including four in the loft space, and three which could only be accessed by going out of the building and back in through separate doors!
When the Council workers spoke to tenants they found evidence of up to 15 people living in the building. Interviews with tenants who were present during the inspection found they were paying between £85 and £125 per week to live in the converted bungalow.
Smoke alarms
Council staff found an inadequate number of smoke alarms, none of which were interlinked – this being a key safety requirement for HMO’s.
Further inspections of the property revealed that some of the rooms were as small as 3.48 m2. The smallest acceptable size for rooms in an HMO property is 6.51 m2.
Speaking in court as she issued the fine, District Judge Cooper said: “These people were low income, English was not their first language and they were vulnerable. I place culpability at its highest. Though the defendant may not have understood she needed a licence, she must have understood these rooms were very small and the partitioning was inadequate.”
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