A buy to let investor who converted three family homes to HMOs without securing planning permission has been jailed for falsifying documents designed to prevent enforcement action.
Siddarth Mahajan, from Ilford in north London, purchased a three-bedroom property in Barking in July 2015.
Council officers investigated following concerns that building works had been carried out at the property without prior planning permission. The investigation revealed the property had been converted to a HMO, without planning permission.
Mahajan claimed that the property had been in use as a HMO for more than 10 years and was therefore immune from enforcement action.
He produced a number of documents to support this claim including several tenancy agreements, a letter from an estate agent and a sworn affidavit which appeared to show that the property had been a HMO as far back as 2008.
Enquiries by the council’s Specialist Investigations Team with the estate agent and previous owners revealed that all the submitted documents were forgeries.
The team also examined other properties owned by Mahajan.
He had purchased two further houses as family homes and had also converted them to HMOs without securing planning permission.
Mahajan claimed that these properties had also been in continuous use for over 10 years as HMOs and were therefore also immune from enforcement action.
Again he submitted supporting evidence including tenancy agreements and sworn affidavits from alleged previous tenants. The team found that the documents were forgeries and the affidavits were untrue.
After Mahajan declined to attend interviews on a number of occasions, he was arrested and interviewed under caution.
Now a jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court has found Mahajan guilty of two counts of perverting the course of justice and three counts of using copies of forged documents.
He was sentenced to eight months imprisonment on each to run concurrently, a total of 16 months.
Judge Gordon told Mahajan that he had “planned sophisticated criminal activity over a lengthy period” and was motivated “solely by greed.” He took the view that only an immediate custodial sentence would meet the seriousness of the case.
A Barking and Dagenham council spokesman says: “This dishonest landlord repeatedly refused to comply with the law and we pursued all the legal avenues that were available to us to ensure that he was brought to justice. We will continue to crack down on rogue landlords to improve standards and to ensure that tenants in our borough have a decent home.”
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What has happened to the properties?
He wasn't sentenced to 16 months in prison, just eight months. Now if the sentences had been consecutive you would have been correct.
The way I see it he is going to have eight months inconvenience while his properties carry on earning for him and then he will be free and doing very well thank you. In Far East terms that is doing good business. Jail is just a business hazard.
Surely there is more to report here?
something doesnt ring right with this report. if he can produce the documents, surely if its forgery, surely they should say that the local authorities had not given the documentations, Somehow amongst all these reports online, it feels like we are becoming more like communism. Suppressing capitalism and confiscating properties claimed its criminal profits. surely, as a business, it cannot be under criminal law. its civil , isnt it? if he can provide tenancy agreement, then he also got copy of their bank statement and perhaps letter of reference as proof. there are so many ways one can proof it but we didnt get to hear the other side, do we.
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