A judge fined husband and wife student landlords Abdul Kalam and Jahanara Begum more than £4,000 for running a shared house without a licence while flouting fire safety rules.
Judge Crane told the couple that breaking the rules may have put the lives of their six student tenants at risk when they admitted a catalogue of house in multiple occupation offences at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court.
In total, they were fined £4,250 and ordered to pay £4,523 costs after pleading guilty to five charges.
The court heard Camden Council housing officers visited the three-floor house in Castlehaven Road, Camden, North London, and discovered the six-bed property lacked fire exits and other fire safety precautions.
The judge was also told that the couple, who live in Basingstoke, Hampshire, earned more than £40,000 a year rent from the property while the council repeatedly asked them to register and improve conditions for the students.
“The lack of compliance with the regulations compromised the safety of tenants and possibly put their lives at risk,” said the judge. “This would still have applied even if there were only four tenants.
“These regulations are in place to prevent precisely this sort of abuse of tenants and putting them at risk in order to pocket large sums of money without carrying out repairs.”
The couple were fined £1,000 each for failing to obtain an HMO licence, while Kalam was also fined £2,000 for breaking fire safety rules and £250 for not repairing a broken window.
Begum must pay £2,015 costs and her husband was ordered to pay £2,523 costs.
Camden Council’s cabinet member for community safety, Cllr Abdul Hai, said: “Irresponsible landlords need to get the message loud and clear: you will not be tolerated in Camden.
“We will use all powers available to prosecute these people who are more concerned with lining their pockets than providing safe and decent accommodation to paying tenants.”
