A landlord who sub-let an unlicensed HMO, failed to pay thousands of pounds in rent to the owner and illegally evicted a tenant has been handed a £4,872 rent repayment order.

The tenant – a nurse at a nearby hospital - moved in during December 2020, paying £550 per month and a deposit of £580, a First Tier Property Tribunal heard.

He shared the four-bedroom house in Croydon Road, Wallington (main image), with five other men, and said landlord Samuel Babajide Saibu did not live there.

The tenant was given two weeks’ notice in December 2022 but refused to leave as he needed more time to find somewhere else and paid the rent in January 2023. Saibu changed the locks, meaning that the tenant had difficulty recovering his possessions, and didn’t repay the deposit or the last month’s rent.

Saibu told the court he had rented the property from Priyanthini Naveenthiran and held the property under an assured shorthold tenancy from 31st January 2020 to 30th January 2021 at £1,700 per month. He had taken in no more than four lodgers and always lived there.

Rent arrears

Saibu produced a copy of a possession order from November 2022 that showed he owed Naveenthiran rent arrears of £8,586 plus costs. He could not provide evidence of having paid the electricity, gas or WIFI bills, and a council tax bill showed arrears of £3,991.

The tribunal said Saibu was the tenants’ landlord, ruled he was not acting as agent for Mr Naveenthiran and that the eviction was illegal. The judge added: “He pocketed the monies from the men staying in the property without accounting for the monies owed to Mr Naveenthiran or paying the other overheads of the property.

"The inevitable consequence was that Mr Naveenthiran would (as he did) seek a possession order in respect of the property. This in our judgment is close to dishonest behaviour and is on any view reprehensible.”

The judge ruled that he should pay 70% of the rent claimed.

Read the judgement in full.