30^th Sep 2018

Islington council has recently prosecuted two private landlords who were found guilty of renting out houses in dangerous and sub-standard conditions, after the council discovered 35 tenants living in squalor in one "appalling" property.

The council's officers found tenants living in four two-bedroom flats in a semi-detached Victorian property in Highbury.

There were as many as six people who had to sleep in each bedroom; the officers also found that the property had breached many fire safety regulations putting the tenants at considerable risk.

Neighbours throughout the street were extremely worried for their own safety, and said.....“disturbances became so frequent and extreme we were fearful for the safety of our family”.

The two rogue landlords also had two flats that they were renting out in Finsbury Park, which the officers also found to be dangerously overcrowded.

During the two landlords' convictions at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court, the district judge condemned the pair for the extreme overcrowding and the “appalling” state of the properties.

One of the landlords who lives in Birmingham was found guilty of fifteen management offences for the Finsbury Park flats.

The other landlord from Finsbury Park was found guilty of thirty five management offences for the Finsbury Park flats and the Highbury house.

The guilty pair will receive their sentences at Blackfriars Crown Court in due course.

Cllr Diarmaid Ward, the council's housing leader, said “Many landlords do the right thing and look after their tenants, but landlords who put tenants at risk will be held to account by the council and by the courts.”

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