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14/7/25 8:13 pm
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A landlord who was criticised by a tribunal judge for his “appalling behaviour” has had to pay former tenants a whopping £25,542.
Jonathan Krogdahl and wife Nicky were handed the Rent Repayment Order after a judge ruled that they had no excuse for their HMO in Craven Hill, London, being unlicensed between May 2022 and May 2023 under Westminster Council’s additional scheme.
A hearing at the First Tier Property Tribunal - the details of which have just been revealed - heard that the pair believed they should not be liable as their company Ewan Partners received rent. However, Judge Jones said a Section 21 notice had been signed by each of them when they had asserted themselves as being “joint landlords”.
Krogdahl argued that they did not act with bad faith or wilful neglect, and that once the oversight was realised, they took immediate steps to apply for the licence.
However, Judge Jones highlighted “mounting unpleasantness” directed at the three tenants when they tried to negotiate a new tenancy, after Krogdahl wrote to them, advising he would be “requesting character references from your employers in support of our case”.
Judge Jones said: “We find the mention of requests to seek references from the applicants’ employers…deliberately intimidating.”
Krogdahl then accused the tenants of blackmail, and “entirely indefensibly” threatened to report one of them to the Crown Prosecution Service for fraud. He later investigated the identity of the tenants’ new landlord and sought to imply in correspondence his suspicion that they might have sought to falsely provide a reference he had not given, the tribunal heard.
He later made “unwarranted” demands for £10,620 and £28,303 from them. “The purpose was, characteristically, to intimidate, against the ongoing RRO application,” added the judge, who said it amounted to “appalling behaviour” and accepted that the campaign of unwarranted applications, was “a vexatious campaign forming part of Mr Krogdahl’s personal vendetta against the applicants”.
The tribunal awarded 70% of the maximum potential RRO.
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