Council seeking info on agencies that worked with rogue landlord

A council says it’s looking for lettings agencies that worked with a rogue landlord who's been issued with a four year banning order.

Bristol council requested the information directly from the landlord - Deepak Singh Sashdeva - along with other material relating to a property he was letting in the Avonmouth area of Somerset. 

Last year Sashdeva was found guilty of five offences relating to the failure to manage a house in multiple occupation in Avonmouth  He was fined £87,000, after inspectors found some of the worst living conditions they had ever seen.

The council says anyone with information about properties let by Sachdeva, including any letting agencies with which he was connected, should email: private.housing@bristol.gov.uk.

In 2020 Bristol council environmental health officers found three people, including two young children, sleeping in cupboards in the eaves of the roof of Sashdeva’s investment property in Avonmouth. Officers also noted that nine people, including two children and a pregnant woman, were housed in the two tiny different living spaces.

Council officers visited the accommodation in Avonmouth again in January this year to check on conditions and found someone sleeping in one room of the property, in contravention of a Prohibition Order that makes it illegal for people to live in the unsafe accommodation.

When asked about the property Sachdeva said he was selling the lease, but to date had failed to provide proof this was the case.

Bristol council successfully applied for a banning order, which will also prevent Sachdeva from carrying out any property management work. In making the banning order, Judge J Dobson said: “The Tribunal concludes on the facts found that the respondent was a rogue landlord who had failed by a large margin to meet his legal obligations and who had exploited the occupiers by providing substandard and dangerous accommodation.”

Sachdeva did not attend the hearing; he will be added to the government’s Rogue Landlord Database. If he breaches the Banning Order he could be prosecuted and the penalty if found guilty includes imprisonment.