Landlords Fined Over Unlicensed HMOs

A toxic landlord-tenant relationship ended with a judge ordering the landlord to pay more than £25,000 to his former renters.

A First-Tier Property Tribunal ordered Jonathan Krogdahl and his wife Nicky to hand back £25,542 paid by the tenants for renting them a house in multiple occupation without an additional licence at Crawen Hill, London.

The couple were prosecuted by Westminster Council for failing to take out the licence between May 2022 and May 2023. They claimed that they were not responsible for the licence as their company, Ewan Partners, was paid the rent.

However, the judge disagreed as the couple had each signed Section 21 no-fault eviction paperwork, which showed they acted as joint landlords of the property.

The three tenants were treated with 'mounting unpleasantness' when trying to arrange a new tenancy with the Krogdahls, said the judge.

Jonathan Krogdahl demanded character references from the renters' employers, accused them of blackmail and threatened to report one of the tenants for fraud for falsely allegedly passing a reference from him to another landlord.

"The purpose was to intimidate, against the ongoing rent repayment order application," said the judge, who added Mr Krogdahl's actions amounted to "appalling behaviour" and accepted that they were "a vexatious campaign forming part of Mr Krogdahl's personal vendetta against the applicants."

As a postscript, Mr Krogdahl wrote to the tribunal after the hearing, requesting that any order for monies paid to the tenants should include the proviso that the cash should go to charity.

The judge replied: "The tribunal applies the law as it is, not as Mr Krogdahl might wish it to be, and the state of the law is that a repayment order requires repayment of rent to the tenant, not a third party. What the applicants choose to do with such sums is entirely their own affair."

Landlord's fine increased by an appeal judge

A tenant was found sleeping in a restaurant seating area when a housing team raided a curry house and the flats above after a complaint about the property was made by a tenant

Thirteen people were living in flats and restaurant, which had 11 bedrooms.

Owner Fayez Noori, owner of the Indian Diner in Ashford, Kent, was given a civil penalty of £10,000 for running a house in multiple occupation without a licence and ordered to carry out urgent repairs to the building.

He ignored the improvement notice and appealed the penalty to the First-Tier Tribunal, claiming the fine was too high, but the appeal was dismissed as out of time. He then appealed to the Upper Tribunal, which heard his case.

The Upper Tribunal heard the appeal but ruled against the landlord and increased his penalty to £12,500 as the judge regarded the chance of one of the tenants being injured as a result of the poor state of the HMO was high.