Letting agent Mohammed Khubaib has to pay fines and costs of more than £4,000 after facing magistrates for the third time for running a shared house without a licence.
Khubaib – who runs Beehive Lettings in Peterborough, East Anglia – was found guilty of managing a house in multiple occupation without a licence for the third time.
Khubaib, 41, who has traded as a letting agent for 10 years, was convicted of licensing offences in 2005 and 2010. He also has another conviction for illegally evicting a tenant from 2012.
Peterborugh Magistrates found him guilty of the charge after he denied the offence.
He was fined £2,250 and ordered to pay £1,880 costs.
The property owner, Maroof Hussain, 36, admitted running the HMO without a licence and was fined £1,250 with £815 costs.
Peterborough Council placed the property in Cromwell Road, Peterbough, under an interim management order following a fire in January 2012.
At the time, nine people lived in the property, which was licensed for six.
Neither Khubaib nor Hussain applied for an HMO licence nor carried out fire repairs ordered by the council. Eventually, the council repaired the house and billed the owner more than £12,000 for the work.
The owner has also failed to offer an alternative manager for the property, which has led to the council taking out a final management order.
This order lets the council control the house for up to five years.
Jo Hodges, the council’s senior neighbourhood enforcement officer, said: “We have had to make a number of interim management orders over the last few years, in cases where landlords and agents have failed to comply with their legal responsibilities when operating houses of multiple occupation. This, however, is the first time we have had to make a final management order.
“Once this order is made and the city council has taken over management of the property, the rental income from the tenants is used to reimburse any costs incurred in carrying out the repairs and management of the property, with any surplus being paid to the owner. Any monies not recovered during the term of an order could result in the sale of the property being enforced by the city council to recover this debt.
“Equally, any works carried out in default of statutory notices and paid for by the council will be recovered from the owner.”
