An "elderly" landlord in Leeds has been banned from operating private rented properties after a series of magistrates court convictions starting in 2018. The banning order was granted to Leeds City Council in January 2022 by the First Tier Tribunal Property Chamber (Residential Property) to be effective from 16th February but an extra 3 month period beyond that date was given so that all his remaining tenants could be rehoused.

The tribunal examined the offences that led to 4 magistrates court cases and noted that whilst the banning order application before it was pending (the application had been made by the council in 2020), a 5th prosecution before the magistrates court had been started against the landlord. When commenting on the offences leading to the banning order application the Tribunal stated "there are too many offences for the Tribunal to summarise here" [in its decision].

The council's principal housing officer stated in evidence that the council " could not keep expending valuable housing team resources on [the landlord] who was not responding to advice and not learning to mend his ways as a result of prosecutions" and that he "decided that in order to protect the tenants in [the landlords'] properties" there was no other course of action open to the council but to serve notice of intention to apply for a banning order.

Prior to the convictions the council's rogue landlord unit had tried to engage with the landlord and then in 2016 a programme of inspections of the landlord's properties was started by the council. This led to him being served with improvement notices, prohibition notices and emergency prohibition notices before prosecutions were started for failure to comply with the notices and breaches of the HMO regulations. In total the outcome for the landlord was fines, costs and victim surcharges totalling £61,924. The landlord had insisted on trying to carry out repair works himself despite his age and despite having had 4 heart attacks whilst his vulnerable tenants included elderly people and families with children.

The case history is reported in detail here but the transcript of the Tribunal decision can be found here.