LAW: Landlord to pay £10,000 to four tenants following Tribunal RRO hearing

A landlord in North London is to pay back a group of tenants a total of £10,600 following a rent repayment order (RRO) decision by a Tribunal judge.

Judge Amran Vance made the order after tenants Stefano Magini, Nadim Mostafa, Ana Saez and Louisa Leroy said that during their tenancy at an HMO property on Hermitage Road (pictured), it was not licenced as required under an existing Haringey additional licensing scheme.

The six-bedroom house was operated as an HMO by Simone Zanchetta through his company Zanka Properties Limited to which the tenants paid their rent, although neither he nor his company owned the freehold to the property.

Represented by Justice for Tenants, the four renters provided proof that they lived at the address last year each for different lengths of time; that Zanchetta was named as ‘immediate landlord’ in their contracts; and that they therefore were entitled to have their rent returned.

It was also claimed during the hearing that one of the tenants’ deposits had not been protected and that they had not been provided with a Gas Safe certificate for the property.

Landlord

During the hearing Zanchetta said he was not the landlord of the property and instead a letting agent managing the property as instructed by freeholder Mr Mubin, and that the rent was passed on minus a 6% commission to a third party, Rent Me London, who were the real managing agent.

Judge Vance said these claims were ‘untenable’ given the evidence presented to the Tribunal, and that he had acted in the ‘capacity of a landlord’.

Zanchetta has 28 days to appeal the Tribunal’s decision.

Read more about rent-to-rent arrangements.