A landlord who failed to licence a house in multiple occupation (HMO) under Haringey Council's boroughwide additional licensing scheme must repay over £10,000 of rent to 4 tenants under a rent repayment order (RRO).

The landlord was the sole director of the company, Zanka Properties Ltd, named on the tenancy agreements signed with the occupants and which the tenancy agreements stipulated that rent should be paid to. The landlord did attempt to argue that he was not the owner of the property and that he had been instructed to let the property on the owner's behalf and collect 6% of the rent as commission for that service. However, the FTT found that there was no evidence provided of such a relationship and that Zanka Properties Ltd was thus the immediate landlord for the purposes of HMO licensing regulations and the RRO rules in the Housing and Planning Act 2016.

The FTT, looked at the conduct of the landlord when setting the amount of the rent repayment to each individual tenant at 85% of the rent paid and took into account that the licensable property had not been licensed saying "Proper enforcement of licensing requirements is, in our view, crucial to endure the effectiveness of the system as a whole and to deter evasion. ..... In our view, the seriousness of the failure to licence would warrant the making of RROs of 75% of the rent paid subject to the remaining section 44(4) [Housing and Planning Act 2016] factors".

In this case, those factors included: the complete lack of any evidence "that the first respondent [the landlord] had taken steps to inform itself of its duties under the 2006 regulations [HMO management regs], in particular in respect of fire safety measures, which we regard as serious failures";

the failure to protect the deposit of one of the tenants; the failure to provide another tenant with a gas safety certificate, electrical safety certificate or an energy performance certificate with the landlord's evidence "demonstrating a lack of regard to important duties which were his responsibility ..."; the failure to ensure that one tenant had a functioning lock on the door of her room and; the fact that the landlord said he had let out at least 4 other properties meant that he did not even have the excuse of being an inexperienced landlord.

Judge Amran Vance also ordered the landlord to pay the Tribunal fees incurred by the tenants in their application for the rent repayment order. The tenants were represented by Justice for Tenants

Looking for up to the minute updates on all selective licensing and PRS news? Follows us on Facebook Twitter LinkedIn