A landlord who forgot to chase up a licence application for her rented property in London has paid a heavy price for her mistake after being ordered to return rent totalling £11,245 to her former tenants.

The expensive saga began when landlord Zehra Hassan’s HMO licence for the property in Lewisham, south London (pictured) ran out during February 2022.

Prior to this date she had twice tried to chase up the local council to find out about renewing the licence, but was told that this would delayed as the borough’s team tried to clear a backlog created by the Covid pandemic.

But Hassan’s mistake was to then omit to chase the council up, the Tribunal handling the rent repayment order case heard, and the property remained unlicenced for 15 months.

Her tenants complained to the London Borough of Lewisham that their property did not have a licence, and the council contacted he to arrange a viewing.

Unlicenced

She thought officers were responding to her email from months before but it soon became clear the council was aware that the property was unlicenced.

Hassan said she accepted that she was wrong to have left the property unlicenced for so long, and is one of the reasons that the Tribunal cut the RRO by 40%.

Nevertheless, even with this discount, she will now have to pay £11,245 in rent back to all but one of her former tenants and pay their legal costs of some £750.

Fines

The tenants alleged during the hearing that Hassan operated a system of fines for late payment of rent, that no safety paperwork for gas or electrical appliances had been provided, that their rooms were cold and that one of the bathrooms had mould within it. They also accused her of attending the property without sufficient warning.

In mitigation, Hassan said overall the property was of a very high standard, something the local council had acknowledged.

“The fact that the property used to be licenced and that the respondent made a genuine effort to maintain standards do weigh in her favour but they do not excuse [her] failure to seek a renewal of her licence,” the Tribunal judge said.

Read the judgement in full.