Coventry Council originally fined a landlord £31,499 for breaches of The Housing Act 2004, however he successfully managed to reduce the amount to be paid by nearly 90%.

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The original fine of £31,499 issued by the authority was initially reduced down to £24,649 before the landlord took an appeal to the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) where it was ruled that he should only have to pay in total the amount of £3,300.

Following an inspection of the landlord's conversion of his semi detached property into an HMO in Coventry, the city council discovered four breaches of the Housing Act that included, any keys for individual rooms in case of having to leave in case of fire, a smoke heat detector had been removed from the kitchen, no fire blanket in the property and contact details for the landlord or property manager were not displayed anywhere in the house.

On 20th November 2018 the council issued the landlord with a notice of the breaches, but in February 2019 he had failed to carry out any of the mandates and the authority took action.

The council imposed the following penalties on the landlord - £2,100 for failure to display contact details for the responsible management of the property and £29,399 for the breaches of the Housing Act regulation 4 - duty to take safety measures, this was reduced down to £24,649 after the landlord's first challenge.

However the landlord then entered an appeal to the First Tier Tribunal Chamber stating the fines were far more excessive than the city council and government's guidelines and policies, this resulted in having his fine reduced down to just £3,300.

A landlord licensing compliance consultant, commented: “Whilst we cannot condone a landlord not knowing and failing to comply with the HMO Management Regulations, this case is a clear example of a council misapplying the legislation for their own purposes.

“Coventry City Council had originally tried to extract £31,499 from this landlord when in fact, as the Tribunal determined, they were only entitled to fine the landlord a total of £3,300. An attempted over-charge of £28,199.

“Whilst there is no actual proof of causality in this case, it is however interesting that whereas Court Fines go to central government, Councils get to keep these landlord fines as an income stream which may affect their objectivity.”