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Rogue landlords fined £250k over planning offences

John Fitzsimons
Written By:
Posted:
September 5, 2023
Updated:
September 5, 2023

Two landlords have been handed fines and court fees worth more than £250,000 as a result of breaking planning rules and ignoring instructions from the planning enforcement team.

The cases are not connected but were both pursued by Ealing Council.

Zasar Khan, of The Broadway, Southall, was ordered to pay more than £125,000 after ignoring a planning enforcement notice at his property.

Khan was found to have built an unauthorised roof extension at the rear of his property, which he then converted into six self-contained flats. A council inspection in March 2019 found that these flats offered cramped and sub-standard living conditions, with the council serving an enforcement notice ordering Khan to remove the extension and stop using the property as flats.

An appeal against this ruling was dismissed in July 2020, and an inspection by the council in December 2021 found that it was still being occupied in breach of the notice.

Khan was found guilty of failing to comply with the notice, and ordered to pay a confiscation order of £104,000, as well as £14,000 in costs and a £9,000 fine.

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The second case involved Hafiz Imran of Rydal Crescent, Perivale who failed to comply with a council enforcement notice. An unauthorised extension to his property had been converted into a self-contained flat which was being let out.

He was ordered to pay a confiscation order of £100,000, £30,000 in costs and a £500 fine.

Councillor Bassam Mahfouz, the cabinet member for safe and genuinely affordable homes at Ealing Council, praised the council’s enforcement team which had “worked tirelessly to investigate two landlords who put their tenants at risk by not meeting their responsibilities”.

He continued: “In these cases, the landlords initially have three months to pay their confiscation orders and risk a default prison sentence if they do not pay. We know most of our landlords provide high quality, well-managed housing for local people, but we will continue to take robust action against those who do not.”