A lettings agent has been charged £1,000 after telling a new tenant to dump waste left by a previous occupier into a back lane.
The dumped material included a fridge, two armchairs and black bags containing rubbish, and were left by the tenant in a lane behind the rental property in Sunderland.
Council environmental officers tracked the waste to the address from material in the bags and spoke to the tenant, who said her letting agent had advised her to dump it in the belief that the regular local authority rubbish collections would pick it up.
The Sunderland Echo reports that when interviewed by environmental enforcement officers, the lettings agent - who is not named by the paper - admitted she had instructed the tenant to put the waste in the back lane, without understanding the volume involved.
“She was served with a fixed penalty notice for £350 for fly-tipping and charged the £428 cost of removing and disposing of the waste. After further investigations into the wider waste disposal arrangements of the lettings agent, during which she was unable to provide evidence of lawful waste disposal over the last two years, she was served with a further £300 fixed penalty notice” says the newspaper.
The incident was one of a number in a Sunderland council crackdown on dumped waste and rubbish.
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