A Judge has told a landlord prosecuted by Waltham Forest council for property licence application fraud that "the only thing you are sorry for is you've been caught."

The landlord admitted that he had provided "false or misleading information" when applying for a licence covering a property in the borough that he had converted into self contained flats.

The allegation was that he had converted the property without planning permission and had then lied about the date that he had carried out the conversion in an attempt to avoid enforcement action by the council in relation to the planning permission regulations breach. He had claimed that the conversion was carried out in 2012 when it had actually been started in 2014 - meaning that he could not therefore be immune from planning breach enforcement as can in some cases be possible if 4 years have passed since the breach took place.

Adding further to his wrong doing, he had involved some of his tenants in the fraud by getting them to provide false witness statements in support of his lie that the conversion work had been carried out in 2012.

The investigation carried out by the council's audit and fraud team (assisted by the property licensing, planning enforcement and revenues teams) used historic Google Street View images to prove that the property conversion did not take place in 2012 as the landlord said but was actually started in 2014.

In handing down the sentence, Circuit Judge Canavan said "I have absolutely no doubt that you knew you should have got planning permission, but you came unstuck, you got tenants involved to support your assertion that the property was converted in 2012 to prevent enforcement action." A further charge of falsifying letters from UK Power Networks remains on the file and the council is now looking at all licence applications from the landlord covering properties he operates within Waltham Forest.

Cllr. Khevyn Limbarjee, cabinet member for community safety said "I am pleased that this council takes the firm action that is needed to keep tenants safe from landlords who are prepared to lie in order to turn a profit."