Expat landlord fails to keep up-to-date and lands £18,000 fine

A landlord living Down Under who failed to convince a tribunal that she wasn’t to blame for having an unlicensed HMO has been hit with a £17,784 bill.

Renee Daff admitted she had failed to get a licence under Tower Hamlets Council’s selective scheme but tried to argue that she was unaware of the requirement and that when she applied, she was advised the property was exempt because she had stated on the application form that the property was occasionally her residential address.

Statutory obligations

A First Tier Property Tribunal heard that as well as the flat in Tannery House, Deal Street, she owned another property in the same block on a shared ownership basis and another property in Greenwich. Daff argued that she had met all of her other statutory obligations as a landlord and had been a member of the National Landlords Association until 2014; although living in Australia, she still used their website to carry out reference checks for prospective tenants and received their emails about relevant legal changes.

Widely published

The tribunal ruled her ignorance wasn’t excusable and that the exemption argument wasn’t relevant. It added: “The inference to be drawn is that the requirement to obtain a licence would also have been widely published on the website. Therefore, the respondent’s ignorance of this requirement did not provide her with a complete defence.”

While tenants Aris Gyalui and Adriel Aiach-Kohen – represented by Justice for Tenants – had had £2,292 deducted from the tenancy deposit as a result of hanging items on the walls, the tribunal made a rent repayment order representing approximately 80% of the total rent paid by them.