Repeat rogue landlord fined £80,000 over illegal HMO
Giuseppe Sutera was found on this latest occasion to have operated an unlicensed, severely overcrowded HMO with no heating plus damp and mould.
A rogue HMO landlord who repeatedly flouted housing rules has been back in court and hit with fines totalling more than £80,000.
Giuseppe ‘Joe’ Sutera, who at a previous court appearance tried to claim ‘Joe’ had been lost at sea, admitted operating an illegal HMO at a two-storey semi-detached house on Stroud Road in Patchway (pictured) when he appeared at Bristol Magistrates Court.
South Gloucestershire Council was first alerted to the property in March 2023 when it came across an arbitrary payment without an HMO licence application.
Sutera failed to make an application and an inspection uncovered 13 tenants including children living in the property in overcrowded rooms.
Officers found it had no fixed heating, inadequate and unhygienic kitchen facilities, inadequate fire precautions and, in one room, severe damp and mould made worse by lack of heating and poor insulation. The council issued an overcrowding notice and an improvement notice.
The court heard how Sutera was committing an ongoing and flagrant breach of an Emergency Prohibition Order relating to another property on Eagle Drive, Patchway. This was originally served in October 2022 and required him to ensure that it was not occupied until a shared kitchen in the fire escape route was removed.
Prosecuted
Sutera was first prosecuted for a breach of the Emergency Prohibition Order in June 2023 – when he was ordered to pay more than £44,000 for serious housing offences – and has continued to flout the order by letting the property to existing and new tenants while failing to improve safety.
He has now been fined £36,000 for operating an unlicensed HMO and the ongoing breach of an Emergency Prohibition Order.
South Gloucestershire Council, which lists oer 700 properties on its HMO register, said that despite a previous prosecution, Sutera was determined to flout housing legislation and run his properties in a manner that put his tenants’ health, safety and wellbeing at risk.
Shaun Fudge, service manager for private sector housing, adds: “The level of the fines handed out to this landlord acts as a serious warning to others disregarding the rules.”
