Feb

LAW: Landlord brothers lose appeal against being fined £10,000 EACH over illegal HMO

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Two landlord brothers have lost their appeal against both being fined for failing to licence their HMO.

Gurmail and Jarnail Gill were each fined £10,000 by Greenwich Council for not licencing the property in Conway Road, Plumstead.

After a First Tier Property Tribunal backed the decision, however, they appealed to the Upper Tribunal which has now ruled that they are both liable because both had control of the HMO.

The court heard how the brothers had inherited the property from their parents in March 2017 and let it to a single tenant, Mr Pradhan, who was holding over under an expired tenancy granted to him by their father.

£1,400 a month

The original tenancy had included a ban on sub-letting but Mr Pradhan did not live at the property and instead sub-let it to five elderly residents.

He paid £1,400 a month to the Gills and collected rents totalling £1,800. In October 2017, the house became subject to an additional licensing scheme.

The pair argued that joint landlords should jointly be liable for a single financial penalty as there was only one person with control, albeit a person comprised of two individuals.

They said that this was reinforced by the fact the rent was shared equally between them, so neither was a person having control who could commit the relevant offence.

However, the tribunal judge ruled: “Each was a person having control of the HMO and each held that status while the HMO was occupied in circumstances which required a licence but where none had been obtained.

“The appellants did not jointly commit the offence, they each committed it and each could have been separately prosecuted. In the same way, each could be the subject of a separate financial penalty because each has committed his own offence.”

Read more about HMOs.

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