A tenant of an unregistered HMO has been granted a £4,872 rent repayment order following a Tribunal hearing that highlighted his landlord’s likely illegal behaviour.

The NHS nurse moved into the property in Wallington, near Croydon in January 2021. The rent was initially £550 per month with a £580 deposit.

The house consisted of four bedrooms upstairs and two converted rooms downstairs. There were five other occupants although landlord Samuel Babajide Saibu lived elsewhere.

All the tenants had separate locking rooms but shared one bathroom, two toilets and a kitchen – in other words, an HMO.

Locked out

In April the rent was increased to £590 pcm and then in December Akinwale’s landlord gave him two weeks’ notice to leave. Akinwale refused, saying he needed more time and despite paying his rent as usual on 25th January 2023 he was locked out of the house the same day.

Akinwale said he never got his deposit back, nor his last rent payment and had difficulty recovering his belongings. When the tribunal questioned Saibu, he said he had rented the property for £1,700pcm from Priyanthini Naveenthiran through Andrews estate agents.

He denied he had used it as an HMO, instead claiming it was his permanent home and that he had originally moved in with his brother and his mother. Saibu said they then moved out but he remained and from November 2020 he had taken in lodgers but never more than four at a time.

He did admit that there were occasionally more people in the house, but said they were just friends of his lodgers. But he did admit evicting Akniwale.

Reprehensible

During the hearing it became clear Saibu was himself the subject of a possession order for the property as he owed its owner rent arrears of £8,586.20. Nor had he paid council tax on the property, for which he owed a further £3,991.

In addition, both the gas and electrical safety certificates had run out of date, the judge branding such behaviour ‘reprehensible.’

Saibu’s case was further weakened by the testimony of one of the nurse’s fellow tenants as well as Saibu’s failure to produce his bank statements. As everyone paid their rent electronically, his statements would have shown exactly how many were occupying the house, it was highlighted.

The Judge found in favour of the tenant, Akinwale, as the eviction was illegal under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. Because he had not paid his bills, the judge did not give any credit to Saibu for rent or outgoings, fining him £4,872 (70% of the rent) plus £300 costs.

Read the judgement in full.

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