Landlords must follow eviction procedures when they want a tenant to leave and should not take matters in to their own hands.
The warning followed a court case that saw buy to let owner Dawn Schmidt-Rieche , 40, fined £750 and ordered to pay £615 costs after admitting illegally evicting a tenant in Peterborough.
Magistrates were told Schmidt-Rieche took the tenant’s possessions from a rented home in the city and left them in the reception at the tenant’s work.
She then had the locks replaced so the tenant could not move back in to the home.
The tenant complained to the city council, who tried to persuade Schmidt-Rieche to allow the tenant back, but she refused.
Councillor Peter Hiller, cabinet member for housing, neighbourhoods and planning, said: “Anyone taking on the role of landlord needs to be fully aware of their responsibilities under the law.
“There is a legal process that must be followed in order to evict a tenant and a landlord should use the legal powers at their disposal rather than resorting to unacceptable, unlawful behaviour.”
Free rent for drug addicts
A landlord who spent months trying to evict problem tenants was so frustrated with the attitude of other renters in his barn conversion that he put up two insulting posters.
John Brennand, 52, finally removed noisy tenants from one half of a barn conversion he rent out in Ingleton, Skipton, North Yorkshire.
But tenants in the other half of the property complained the process took too long.
So Brennand posted notices in the porch of the barn – one suggested the husband of the remaining tenant was in love with the evicted neighbour, while the other invited drug addicts to sign up for the empty tenancy with the first month’s rent free..
At Skipton Magistrates Court, he admitted putting up posters likely to cause distress and was given a six month conditional discharge and ordered to pay costs of £65.
