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Landlords slapped with hefty fine after ignoring planning and licensing laws

A buy-to-let landlord in North West London has been ordered to pay more than £10,000 for licensing breaches in connection with an overcrowded property that has also seen an estate agency handed a heavy fine.

Landlord Mohammed Mehdi Ali of Barn Hill, Wembley, has been fined £10,000 for failure to licence a three-storey, semi-detached house in Tower Road, Willesden Green, in addition to court costs totalling £3,300.

Easy Let agency was also fined £20,229 by Willesden Magistrate Court for the rental property, which was split into flats, without the appropriate license.

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Ali and Easy Let were in breach of House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) legislation for cramming more than 10 people into the ground and first floor rooms, including three children.

In a separate case heard at Willesden Magistrates last week, landlord Stephen Citron, of Chelmsford Square, Kensal Rise, was ordered to pay £17,273 in fines and court costs for failing to comply with licensing regulations.

Citron was renting out undersized bedrooms to tenants in a house in Keslake Road, Kensal Rise, also in North West London.

The two-storey property contained five standard size bedrooms and two undersized rooms, which were prohibited for use under the licence conditions.

The legal minimum requirement for a single room is 6.5sqm. Citron’s undersized rooms measured 5.1sqm and 4.8sqm respectively. He had ignored repeated warnings to make adjustments to his property in order to comply with legal requirements.

Spencer Randolph, head of private housing services, said: “Ownership of a property does not give landlords the right to ignore planning and licensing laws. Mr Citron and Mr Ali were given every opportunity to comply with regulations, but instead they held the Council in contempt and ended up in court.

“If they had cooperated with us, they would have been spared the hefty financial blows and criminal records they were dealt in court.”

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