A landlord who sought to blame his agent for allowing his property in Camden, London, to become an HMO without it being licensed such that it operated as an unlicensed HMO for 2 years has been fined £20,000 and told that ignorance of the law is no defence after Camden Council argued, amongst other things, that it "is not a defence to blame the agent for not taking the appropriate action to apply for a licence" for the property.

The First Tier Tribunal also noted that the agreements provided by both the landlord's lawyer and the tenants all appeared "to be evasive about providing actual information about the agent and [did not] provide evidence of the physical existence of the agent."

The case is arguably a text book example of how any landlord should not behave when instructing and dealing with an agent (actually existing or not).

In its 14th March decision the Tribunal found many of the landlord's arguments about his approach to both owning this property and interacting with the alleged agents implausible and accepted that he took a poor approach to his property management responsibilities (effectively, with or without an agent) toward the tenants and this was why the fine was kept at £20,000 and not reduced, as the landlord requested, to £4000 for breach of the housing act 2004 and associated HMO management regulations.