Another landlord pays dearly for poor condition property

A landlord has been ordered to pay a total of £8,680 after failing to comply with formal council notices to improve two properties he was letting. 

Simon Vivien Bourne was found guilty in his absence of failing to comply with improvement notices served by Boston council in Lincolnshire. 

Magistrates fined him £2,000 on each of the offences, awarded the council costs of £4,480.79 and levied a £200 victim surcharge.

Both properties were used as HMOs and were found by investigating officers from the borough council to have dangerous defects.

One had dangerous electrical wiring and gas piping; dampness persisted throughout the property since a flood in December, 2013. A washing machine and a fridge were operating in the open in the garden, connected to the electricity supply inside the house. No fire detection system had been installed, tiles were missing from the roof and the chimney stack was in a dangerous condition.

In the other house there were exposed light fittings, damp and a toilet soil pipe was leaking.

"We have been successful in working with landlords and there have been  improvements to the benefit of their tenants. But where landlords ignore us and then ignore notices we serve which are backed by law there will be consequences. This landlord even failed to attend at court, but the case was still dealt with. These issues cannot be ignored, they will not go away" says a council spokesman.