A ‘confused’ landlord who cut corners when maintaining his unlicenced HMO has been told to pay four former tenants £15,703 after they took him to a First Tier Property Tribunal.

Clive Williams, who had rented a house on Foxberry Road (main image) in Lewisham, London, did not attend the hearing during which Judge Tildesly made the rent repayment order against him.

Tenants Claudia Louis, Marianne Skeffington, Rosa Shindler and Anna Borgerding rented the HMO from October 2019 to November 2022.

After being evicted by Williams via an invalid Section 21 notice, they realised the property had not been licenced under Lewisham council’s Additional HMO scheme, which started in April 2022.

The tenants told the Tribunal that they had struggled to get Wilson to manage and maintain the two-storey house adequately, which he did himself instead of using the lettings agency he had already used to find tenants.

Dangerous

Problems at the house included a lack of fire doors, dangerous gas pipework in the kitchen, no carbon monoxide alarms, water leaks in an upstairs toilet plus damp and mould problems.

“The [landlord] demonstrated a blatant disregard of his legal responsibilities as a landlord [and] has not provided an explanation for not having an HMO licence for the property,” the Tribunal said.

The Tribunal adopts the [tenants’] description of the [landlord] as a someone prepared to cut corners in order to save costs.

“The consequence of his actions was that he put the health and safety of the Applicants at serious risk.”

Williams was given a month to appeal the decision. Read the ruling in full.‍