A landlord has been fined £2,000 for failing to carry out improvements to a house that was left in a state of disrepair.
Wajid Hussain, aged 35, of Redlam, Blackburn, was charged with breaching an improvement notice contrary to section 30 of the Housing Act 2004.
The case was proved in his absence at a hearing at Blackburn Magistrates Court recently.
The magistrates heard that the council had received a complaint about the state of the house, also on Redlam.
Council officers visiting the property found a number of health and safety hazards and alerted the landlord to the works required to rectify the problem.
Hussain failed to act on the issues highlighted and was issued an improvement notice. He was also ordered to pay of £753.70 costs and £15 victim surcharge.
Cllr Simon Huggill, executive member for housing at Blackburn Council, said: “We all have a right to live in a safe home whether it is rented or owned. If landlords fail to carry out their legal duties the Council will take action.
“A minority of landlords fail to meet legal standards and we will make them a priority leaving the good landlords to run successful businesses.”
• The actions of a serial fraudster were uncovered when he tried to defraud a borough council by forging a tenancy agreement from a fictitious landlord so that he could claim housing benefit.
This was just one of seven counts of fraud and forgery that Zahid Ali pleaded guilty to at Croydon Crown Court recently. It led to the 45-year-old NHS consultant being jailed for nine months.
The court heard how Ali, who at the time of his arrest was living in a £1m house in Kingswood, Surrey, carried out a number of frauds which helped him net thousands of pounds’.
This was despite the fact he earned around £60,000 a year from his consultancy work advising GPs how to make more money out of their surgeries.
These frauds included claiming housing benefit, incapacity benefit and jobseekers allowance.
While sentencing Ali, Judge Heather Baucher praised Reigate and Banstead Borough Council for its investigation that helped save the tax payer a considerable amount of money.
On top of the nine-month sentence she ordered Ali to pay costs of £3,000 to the prosecution.
