Letting agent fined £50,000 over energy bill ‘scam’
Birmingham businessman handed huge fine after threatening to evict a tenant who complained she was unwittingly paying her neighbour’s gas and electricity bills.
Serial rogue landlord and letting agent Bhavander Sanghera of Jesson Road, Walsall, has been fined £10,000 costs and his agency £40,100 after threatening to evict a tenant who had complained he had ‘duped’ her into paying for her neighbour’s energy bills as well as her own.
Birmingham Live reports the tenant only discovered that her energy supply bills were ‘connected’ to the house next door when she overheard a conversation between her neighbour and a man who had come to read their meter.
Feeling ‘gaslighted’ and getting no satisfactory response from landlord Sanghera, the tenant took her complaint to Wolverhampton Council. It resulted in Sanghera threatening to “chuck her out” and serving her with two eviction notices.
When the case came to court, in what the judge described as a “conflict of interest”, it transpired that her landlord was also the sole director of Wolverhampton-based EBS Property agency that had rented her the property.
Jail sentence
And he already had form, having been sentenced to 28 days in jail the previous year for fraud and unfair trading and was also banned from being a director for eight years.
In the latest case, EBS Property admitted two counts of engaging in unfair practice between November 1, 2016, and December 13, and two counts of engaging in aggressive commercial practice in April and July 2017.
The agency was liquidated earlier this year so it is unlikely to be paid.”
The firm has been fined £40,100 – the equivalent of 66 months’ rent for the Penn Road house. The agency was liquidated earlier this year so it is unlikely to be paid but, despite being on benefits, Sanghera has been ordered to pay £10,000 costs.
Judge Neil Chawla says Sanghera’s actions had, “Caused a high level of distress,” and he lamented that the court’s costs of £219,319.80 could have gone into care homes, potholes and schools.