Landlord fined for unlicensed HMO despite legal agreement with letting agency
A Portsmouth landlord has been fined £7,500 for an overcrowded HMO even though it was being run by a lettings agency under a guaranteed rent scheme.
Landlord Iqbal Miah has been fined £7,500 for an overcrowded HMO even though he had signed a guaranteed rent agreement with a lettings agency Elite Rooms Portsmouth Limited that included a clause prohibiting it from breaching HMO rules.
The house at 67 Manners Road, Portsmouth (pictured), was originally licensed for five people in five separate rooms. When an application was made to increase the numbers to six a housing regulation officer visited the house and found a family of three living in one room and a total of seven people living there.
Guilty
The landlord was subsequently charged with running an overcrowded HMO, which he denied, claiming it was his lettings agency’s responsibility to control the numbers of tenants in the house. He was found guilty and fined £7,500 but appealed shortly after.
The warning is stick to the rules.”
At the appeal hearing, he explained that he had signed a guaranteed rent agreement with Elite Rooms Portsmouth Limited, which is still running as a business according to Companies House, to run the property that obliged the agency to ‘not do anything in relation to the property which would cause the applicant to be in breach of any licence or other consent and ensure that nothing unlawful was done with respect to their management of the Property’.
The judge disagreed and upheld the fine, ruling that Miah held ultimate responsibility for the licensing breach because it was him who held the licence and he had done nothing to ensure Elite Rooms was complying with the rules.
Cllr Lee Hunt, Portsmouth council’s Cabinet Member for Community Safety, Leisure and Sport, said: “Residents living around HMOs can be assured that the council will go after landlords and agents who don’t stick to the rules.
“People living in shared housing must not be exploited. We will be tough on rogue landlords – there are no excuses. The warning is stick to the rules.”
Read more about HMO licensing.
And that’s why landlords shouldn’t use these companies that offer “guaranteed “ rents. They can only do this by flaunting the rules and then you the landlord will suffer.
I don’t know the full ins & outs, but here’s another explanation why you tenants can’t get houses. Looks like Landlord has followed & tried all rules, but the FAMILY LIVING there has moved an extra person in which the Landlord din’t know about, yet Portsmouth City Council & Cllr Lee Hunt think the Landlord should be fined £7.5k. “People living in shared housing must not be exploited. We will be tough on rogue landlords – there are no excuses. The warning is stick to the rules.” You sound great Lee Hunt, you’ve won your little victory. But now all us Landlords are gonna charge as much as we can get cause we just don’t know what is coming next.
And Judges need to get some common sense too.