A strict enforcement line has seen Oxford become one of the toughest local authorities in the UK for private sector housing standards. There is a significant amount of enforcement work being carried out on the non-compliant part of the HMO stock involving following up on service calls from tenants and councillors and residents and for checking suspected licensable HMOs. To date 165 cases have been investigated and closed and a further 148 are still under investigation.
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Since the scheme commenced in January 2011 legal action has been taken in 33 cases with over £50,000 in fines handed out by the courts. In addition one HMO has been the subject of an Interim Management Order where the Council has taken over the landlord function of the property.
Recently, three rogue landlords have been handed fines totalling £23,424 for renting out dangerous and unlicensed HMOs. Officers from Oxford City Council’s Environmental Development service took the action after responding to complaints from the public about suspected HMOs. Details of these cases are provided at the end of this article.
The Housing Act 2004 makes it a requirement that the applicant and persons associated or formerly associated with the applicant must be fit and proper persons to hold a licence. This excludes close family members and business associates or employees who have committed relevant offences. Each case must be determined on its own merits, but a man found not fit and proper cannot simply use his wife, brother or son to hold the licence for example.
Each applicant has to sign a declaration as part of the application form that they have given true answers to questions regarding their fit and proper status and whether they are associated to anyone who has been convicted. This is further checked on Oxford’s databases prior to the issue of the licence to establish whether there is a history of non-compliance. Property ownership and Council Tax records and web searches are also used to establish links to people who are considered not fit and proper. This system helps identify family members and links to businesses.
This fit and proper test for landlords has proved a deterrent for non-compliant landlords who have to resort to using letting agents or other fit and proper people to hold the HMO licence on their behalf. Two letting agents have been declared not fit and proper organisations to manage HMOs.
To date all the landlords who have been advised that they are not fit and proper when they apply for a licence have amended their application and secured the services of a fit and proper person rather than have the Council formally refuse their application. Those landlords who make an application whilst a legal case is underway are also informed that they will lose their fit and proper status if convicted and advised to amend their applications accordingly.
This is an area where there is currently very little case law and Oxford are expecting legal challenges where they have declared a person to be not fit and proper by their association with someone who has been convicted of relevant offences.
Recent prosecutions by Oxford City Council:
Case 1
Barbur Ali, was fined £5,250 after pleading guilty to ten offences under the Housing Act 2004.
Officers visited his property in Warwick Street in May in response to a complaint and found it to be overcrowded with nine adults and a child.
There were inadequate fire precautions throughout the house, the smoke detector was broken, door closers didn’t work, it was dangerous to use the washing machine because the cooker obstructed access to it, the bathroom was in poor repair, some rooms were affected by mould and there were piles of rubbish because there weren’t enough refuse bins.
The 29-year-old was warned that he needed to improve the property but when officers revisited in June and again in July no work had been carried out.
Case 2
Imran Hussain Ali was fined £9,266 after pleading guilty to eleven offences under the Housing Act 2004Officers visited his property in Cowley Road in April in response to a complaint and found it be a cockroach-infested unlicensed HMO in an unsafe condition.
The 33-year-old did not know how many tenants occupied the house, but officers found evidence that it was occupied by at least ten people.
There was no working fire detection, the electrics were in poor condition, a fridge freezer was blocking the way out of the front door, the bathroom was filthy and in poor repair and in the kitchen only one ring was working on the cooker, which was coated in dirt and grease.
Cockroaches were seen throughout the property during the day, indicating a heavy infestation.
Case 3
Rizwan Sultan was fined £8,908 after pleading guilty to thirteen offences under the Housing Act 2004.He was previously convicted in 2008 for similar offences. Officers visited the property in Wilkins Road during May in response to a complaint and found it occupied by a family of four and two other tenants.
Mr Sultan could not provide any gas or electrical safety certificates and the house was in general disrepair with numerous rotted window frames and smashed windows, damaged door frames, a badly repaired kitchen ceiling, unsafe electrics, a fridge was restricting the way out of the front door and the bathroom was in a poor state of repair.
Despite a written warning, a revisit by officers a few weeks later showed that conditions had got even worse.
Councillor Ed Turner, Deputy Leader of Oxford City Council, says: “I am delighted that the Magistrates have sent out such a tough warning to the minority of landlords in Oxford who flout the law.
“Our HMO Licensing Scheme aims to put a stop to landlords who are renting out HMOs that fail to comply with minimum safety standards and put their tenant’s lives at risk.
“Over 2000 HMOs are now licensed in Oxford. This has delivered improvements to over 90 per cent of those properties inspected. At the same time, we will prosecute those rogues who make no effort to license or even properly maintain their properties and flout the law. The message to them is: you have nowhere to hide.”
