A landlord has been prosecuted by London Fire Brigade for allowing tenants to continue living in his property despite fire safety inspectors slapping a notice on it to prevent its use due to serious fire safety concerns.
Panayiotis Chrysostomou was hit with a £10,000 fine after pleading guilty to breaking fire regulations by failing to comply with the prohibition notice placed on the building in Clapham.
Our inspectors were alerted to the property, which was divided into eight bedsits, after firefighters called to a blaze in a neighbouring building raised concerns says a spokesman for the LFB.
The fire risks found at the property over a year ago, prompting the prohibition notice, included an absence of smoke alarms, no emergency lighting and no fire doors, poorly managed cooking equipment in each bedsit within the property, the single escape route blocked by furniture, no evidence of the electrical equipment having been maintained, and no fire risk assessment.
Despite this, following a re-inspection, we found tenants still living in the first three storeys of the four floor property and that almost nothing had been done to improve fire safety says the brigade, which describes the property as a potential death trap.
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