Huge Confiscation Order of £400,000 imposed on buy to let investor

A rogue landlord who divided his three-bedroom home in central London into eight flats has ended up with a bill of over half a million pounds.

Farook Owadally has been fined £90,000 and ordered to pay a Confiscation Order of £400,000, plus £40,000 in costs.

Owadally is accused of ignoring warnings from Westminster council’s planning team for over seven years. 

He illegally converted the basement, ground, first, second and third floors of his Maida Vale property into eight tiny flats, raising huge profits without any planning permission.

Owadally had been charging over £1,000 per month in rent for each of the units which - according to the council -  mostly consisted on a small room.

The council says the safety of those living in the illegal flats was a driving force behind its prosecution as several did not meet the minimum size requirement of 37 square metres for new one-bedroom flats. 

One was just 18 square metres.

“Unfortunately this is a straightforward case of the law catching up with an unscrupulous person. Our planning teams aren’t just ticking boxes and filling in forms for fun – we have planning rules for a reason, to make sure housing is fit for purpose and safe” says a council spokesman.

“We’ve made it our top priority to create more affordable homes for hardworking people and we’re on track to build a at least 1,850 of them by 2023.”

Enforcement notices dating back to January 2012 requested that the defendant remove the flats built into the property, demolish a third-floor extension, and return the property to its former condition as a shop with maisonette above.

Southwark Crown Court heard how the defendant had made no attempts to engage with planning officers and, in particular the notices to stop using the flats, so that he could continue to profit over an extended period of time.

Following the court ruling, Owadilly has been given three months to pay the confiscation order, and six months to pay costs and fines to the courts.