A landlord who allowed his property to fall into extensive disrepair and then ignored repeated requests to carry out improvements must pay £5,600 in fines.
Wajid Mahmood of Clitheroe pleaded guilty to failing to comply with an improvement notice in a case brought by Ribble Valley council.
Blackburn magistrates fined him £2,025 and ordered him to pay costs totalling £2,846.54 – making a total of £5,601.54.
The case concerned a property in Clitheroe, owned jointly by Mahmood and another man. Both were initially jointly charged, but in light of Mahmood’s guilty plea the council withdrew the charge against the second man.
Councillor Mark Hindle, chairman of the council’s health and housing committee, says: “Landlords have a moral, as well as legal, duty to ensure they meet the proper standards. In this case the tenant was badly let down and the state of the property was so bad, without basic essentials such as hot water or heating, that it had a detrimental impact on his mental and physical wellbeing.
“The joint landlords had plenty of opportunities to make things right but they did essentially nothing to improve the situation.”
Magistrates were told that the poor state of the property and the long-running fight to get issues sorted out had a serious impact on the tenant’s mental health and he was unable to wash himself properly due to a lack of hot running water.
The court heard that the tenant of the ground floor flat contacted the council to report that the front door didn’t lock and the shower wasn’t working properly and only ran cold.
The property owners were contacted and asked to make the necessary repairs.
The tenant made further calls to the council reporting extensive disrepair to the property and council environmental health staff inspected the flat and found a number of serious hazards, including significant damp and mould growth, a defective boiler, faulty electrics and no hot running water.
The council issued an improvement notice to the landlords requiring remedial works be carried out.
Subsequently, a new tenant moved in and also complained to the council about ongoing problems with the property.
Council staff carried out another inspection which found the majority of the repairs listed in the improvement notice had not been carried out.
In mitigation, the court was told that Mahmood had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and that he had lost his good character.
He accepted that mistakes had been made, but a close family member had serious health issues which required his time and attention.
He accepted works had been carried out later than they should, but most had now been completed.
This article is taken from Landlord Today