Licensing Change Costs Landlord £10,000

Landlord Frieda Hughes claimed her letting agent failed to tell her that the local council had changed licensing rules for houses in multiple occupation.

Hughes lived in Wales and let an HMO in Goose Green, Southwark, London.

When she first let the property, the council, in May 2021, she applied for a selective licence.

From March 2022, Southwark Council also required a selective and an additional licence for the property, but Hughes blamed her letting agent for not telling her.

The tenants moved out in March 2023 and tipped off the council about the licensing offence.

Hughes was convicted, and the tenants filed a claim for a rent repayment order.

At the First-Tier Tribunal, Judge Sarah McKeown ruled in favour of the tenants and ordered Hughes to pay each tenant £3,360 - a total of £10,080.

Licence exemption claims irrelevant

Landlord Sonja Mitterhuber argued she did not need to licence a rented flat as an HMO because the tenants were licensees, and she lived there, which exempted the property from a licence.

But lawyers for tenants who lived in the flat in Enfield, North London, disagreed.

They claimed that whether they were tenants or licensees was irrelevant. The rules defined a tenancy as including a licence, and the additional license was needed when three or more occupiers formed two or more households, regardless of whether the landlord lived at the property.

The First-Tier Tribunal ruled for the tenants and ordered Mitterhuber to pay a rent repayment order of £1,422 with £320 costs.

Forgetting HMO licence was no defence

Forgetting to chase Lewisham Council over an outstanding HMO licence application has cost a landlord more than £10,000.

Zehra Hassan twice tried to chase the council about renewing the licence but was told this was delayed due to COVID-19.

Hassan did not try to chase her licence again, and her rented home remained unlicensed for 15 months. The tenants complained to the council, which prosecuted her for not having a licence.

Her tenants then filed a claim for a rent repayment order, which was heard by the Fist-Tier Tribunal, which awarded the tenants compensation totalling £11,245 and ordered Hassan to pay legal costs of £750.

Tenants can’t be charged for landlord’s thinking time

Landlord Ginny Monroe was ordered to repay a tenant a £750 deposit after charging fees for writing her letters and photographing her rented room.

The tenant paid the deposit to rent a room in Camberley, Surrey, but the landlord did not return the money when she moved out.

Monroe told the First-Tier Tribunal she had charged the tenant £15 an hour for photographing and documenting the condition of her room when she left - including 10 hours of ‘thinking time’ and 12 hours of writing, which added up to a £330 fee.

Other costs included ‘talking noise or shouting vocal noise’, which she had to address several times and taking in deliveries for the tenant’s business, which were also charged at £15 an hour.

The tribunal ruled for the tenant, telling Monroe that the holding deposit should have been a week’s rent - which was £150 charged for the room - and the other fees were not allowed by the Tenant Fees Act.